Dance Town

The movie opens with a slice of life in North Korea. A husband and wife furtively watch porn with some fear and exaltation. It might have been cool to dwell a while longer in that mysterious country but director Kyu-hwan Jeon, races across the border to the south as the wife, Jung-nim Rhee (),  escapes on Chinese fishing boat soon after her husband is arrested. Rhee soon is soon faced with a land with “freedom” abound. But being “free” does not equate to contentment and happiness. She is soon confronted with demons called loneliness and despondence. Like it was said in Into the Wild, happiness is only real when shared.

Rating: * * *

Almost Perfect

Vanessa (Kelly Hu) is supposedly an overworked and badly dressed NGO professional with an insanely demanding family. Her life is so busy that she has no time for a relationship. All that changes when Mr. Right shows up in the guise of her kid brother’s best friend. Soon a tiresome romance ensues with myriad of forced problems that leaves you wanting to tear your hair out. The only hope is to focus on the stunning Ms. Hu who fails miserably in trying to look plain. Even more painful was the after film question and answer session with the director Bertha Pan, who obviously needs a crash course in South East Asia cinema. It is a wonder that this film was short listed for the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival 2011.

Rating: *

I Wish I Knew

Jia Zhang Ke’s documentary loosely follows the pulse of Shanghai from the 1850s to present day. He feels the pulse by interviewing a spectrum of Shanghainese . Some recognizable like Hsiao-hsien Hou, Rebecca Pan others obscure to a western audience. Their stories bring forth different emotions but none really test your emotional threshold. Plus the lack of interviews with the common man left a gaping hole in the film. Somehow it was the quiet presence of Zhang Ke’s muse, Tao Zhao, that left an impression. Her silent presence evokes the trademark stillness of Zhang Ke and showing that he might be better of sticking to fiction.

Rating: * *