Lust Caution
Yeah!!! Friday night. Caught up with the crazy bunch for dinner at Manhanttan Fish Market (Plaza Singapura). When Adrian first mentioned about this place, I was like “huh? Fish market????”. Haha.
For those of you who have yet to hear of this place, it’s basically another Fish & Co. BUT it sells better food and at a cheaper price too :) Sad to say, they didn’t have crayfish on the menu. Otherwise it would’ve been perfect – the prawns, the dory and the crayfish. Yummy!
As usual, the queen and princess were late again. The queen arrived slightly earlier and told us about her Russian ‘adventures’. Let me see what we’d talked about:
1)Gypsies stealing her colleague’s belongings and the time it took to making the police report and to retrieving the stolen items – the cash was of course, missing.
2)Witnessed a stabbing drama while stuck in a traffic jam: A guy’s face was covered with blood as he sat on the floor, scrawling away from his attacker. The latter tried relentlessly to continue his assault with his knife (or in her words, “poke”) but was fended off by a passer-by using a mannequin. Definitely drama. By the way, that left us to debate whether the action should’ve been termed as “stab” or “poke”… all the while using our dinner forks to “re-visit” the scene and action to better illustrate our points.
3)And there was something about “Mos-lim”. Wondered where that came from.
4)And there were the two loaves of bread (hard enough to be used as bats) and a thin strip of each (salmon, beef and something else) that added up to more approx. S$120 for a simple meal. Wow… that’s definitely something expensive and even top restaurants here wouldn’t have cost that much!
Of course, after her anecdotes, the princess finally arrived and we spent some time to recap the above adventures in detail once more.
Gosh! Before we knew, it was past 10pm and it was time to get ready for Lust Caution. The whole gang trouped from one end to another, and from one storey to another, in search of the ladies. But guess what? Every toilet that the princess stumbled upon where closed… and in increasingly “guarded” means too:
First toilet: There was a normal sign to say the toilet was closed for cleaning.
Second toilet: There was the normal sign to say the toilet was closed for cleaning PLUS metal chains to block the passage.
Third toilet: There was the normal sign to say the toilet was closed for cleaning PLUS metal chains to block the passage PLUS two rubbish bins…
Luckily, our little misadventure ended with the fourth toilet we found. It was then we parted with Lenus and the queen, while the rest of us head upstairs for Lust Caution.
After the show, it was unanimously agreed that Lee Hom was the show spoiler. Sorry Lee Hom fans. I was quite disappointed too by his performance. I supposed the way he acted was more suitable for stage and not for the big screen. And one really important aspect that he really needed to work on was his pronunciation. Many of his supporters out there might say that that’s the way he talks and there’s nothing wrong with it. But if you put into the context of the movie, it just didn’t gel! As an actor, the expectations would be very different from that of a singer's. You need to talk, walk and breathe like that character you play or it would all fall flat. Imagine, the setting was during the Japanese occupation and he’s supposed to be a Chinese university student out to hunt down the traitor (Tony Leung)… but he speaks Chinese with an American english slang!!!! OMG.
There were parts that he sounded more like he’s trying to rap than deliver the lines with emotions too. Haiz.
And the other thing was, although his scenes were a lot lesser than Tang Wei and Tony Leung, the scenes with him in it were very important to link back what had made Tang Wei’s role so entangled between him and Tony Leung! But I couldn’t see or feel WHY Tang Wei’s character would feel that way as Lee Hom’s role wasn’t very well delivered (i.e.: passionate about his country but at the same time hating himself for sacrificing his “beloved” Tang Wei’s virginity and putting her in danger and etc). There’s simply a lot of complicated emotions within his character that just wasn’t evident enough through his acting.
And on the sex scenes between Tony Leung and Tang Wei, I finally understood what Lee Ang and the critics meant after watching the censored version of the movie. Had the full sex scenes been shown, it would’ve given the audience an even more solid idea and deeper meaning to what had made Tony Leung’s character, who was initially suspicious about Tang Wei’s character, began to fall in love with her and trust her completely. Not to mention some of the riddles Tang Wei’s character said as she described her dilemma to Lee Hom and her “boss”.
Overall, the movie’s really good. Despite the censorship and the comments I made about Lee Hom, you really should go watch the movie. Better still, if you ever have a chance to catch the full version, do it.
Ah~ it’s been such a long time that I watched a Chinese literature movie and stayed awake throughout. Not to mention that this was one of the few (I could easily count with one hand) Chinese movies I’d ever watched in a cinema.
For those of you who have yet to hear of this place, it’s basically another Fish & Co. BUT it sells better food and at a cheaper price too :) Sad to say, they didn’t have crayfish on the menu. Otherwise it would’ve been perfect – the prawns, the dory and the crayfish. Yummy!
As usual, the queen and princess were late again. The queen arrived slightly earlier and told us about her Russian ‘adventures’. Let me see what we’d talked about:
1)Gypsies stealing her colleague’s belongings and the time it took to making the police report and to retrieving the stolen items – the cash was of course, missing.
2)Witnessed a stabbing drama while stuck in a traffic jam: A guy’s face was covered with blood as he sat on the floor, scrawling away from his attacker. The latter tried relentlessly to continue his assault with his knife (or in her words, “poke”) but was fended off by a passer-by using a mannequin. Definitely drama. By the way, that left us to debate whether the action should’ve been termed as “stab” or “poke”… all the while using our dinner forks to “re-visit” the scene and action to better illustrate our points.
3)And there was something about “Mos-lim”. Wondered where that came from.
4)And there were the two loaves of bread (hard enough to be used as bats) and a thin strip of each (salmon, beef and something else) that added up to more approx. S$120 for a simple meal. Wow… that’s definitely something expensive and even top restaurants here wouldn’t have cost that much!
Of course, after her anecdotes, the princess finally arrived and we spent some time to recap the above adventures in detail once more.
Gosh! Before we knew, it was past 10pm and it was time to get ready for Lust Caution. The whole gang trouped from one end to another, and from one storey to another, in search of the ladies. But guess what? Every toilet that the princess stumbled upon where closed… and in increasingly “guarded” means too:
First toilet: There was a normal sign to say the toilet was closed for cleaning.
Second toilet: There was the normal sign to say the toilet was closed for cleaning PLUS metal chains to block the passage.
Third toilet: There was the normal sign to say the toilet was closed for cleaning PLUS metal chains to block the passage PLUS two rubbish bins…
Luckily, our little misadventure ended with the fourth toilet we found. It was then we parted with Lenus and the queen, while the rest of us head upstairs for Lust Caution.
After the show, it was unanimously agreed that Lee Hom was the show spoiler. Sorry Lee Hom fans. I was quite disappointed too by his performance. I supposed the way he acted was more suitable for stage and not for the big screen. And one really important aspect that he really needed to work on was his pronunciation. Many of his supporters out there might say that that’s the way he talks and there’s nothing wrong with it. But if you put into the context of the movie, it just didn’t gel! As an actor, the expectations would be very different from that of a singer's. You need to talk, walk and breathe like that character you play or it would all fall flat. Imagine, the setting was during the Japanese occupation and he’s supposed to be a Chinese university student out to hunt down the traitor (Tony Leung)… but he speaks Chinese with an American english slang!!!! OMG.
There were parts that he sounded more like he’s trying to rap than deliver the lines with emotions too. Haiz.
And the other thing was, although his scenes were a lot lesser than Tang Wei and Tony Leung, the scenes with him in it were very important to link back what had made Tang Wei’s role so entangled between him and Tony Leung! But I couldn’t see or feel WHY Tang Wei’s character would feel that way as Lee Hom’s role wasn’t very well delivered (i.e.: passionate about his country but at the same time hating himself for sacrificing his “beloved” Tang Wei’s virginity and putting her in danger and etc). There’s simply a lot of complicated emotions within his character that just wasn’t evident enough through his acting.
And on the sex scenes between Tony Leung and Tang Wei, I finally understood what Lee Ang and the critics meant after watching the censored version of the movie. Had the full sex scenes been shown, it would’ve given the audience an even more solid idea and deeper meaning to what had made Tony Leung’s character, who was initially suspicious about Tang Wei’s character, began to fall in love with her and trust her completely. Not to mention some of the riddles Tang Wei’s character said as she described her dilemma to Lee Hom and her “boss”.
Overall, the movie’s really good. Despite the censorship and the comments I made about Lee Hom, you really should go watch the movie. Better still, if you ever have a chance to catch the full version, do it.
Ah~ it’s been such a long time that I watched a Chinese literature movie and stayed awake throughout. Not to mention that this was one of the few (I could easily count with one hand) Chinese movies I’d ever watched in a cinema.
posted by ikan bilis at 2:04 AM
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