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kurthr
Reviews
Sik san (1996)
An incredible Chinese comedy, and commentary.
God of Cookery is a hilarious parody of a number of other great HK films (the gambler series, early Jackie Chan, and "Chinese Feast" style cuisine dramas), though I didn't know that when I first saw it... it's how I got into the genre. Because it's satire is so over the top though, you also start to get a feel for the huge differences in film tabus between western and eastern cinema. Production values are amazingly high, and although they "fixed" a couple of hilarious subtitles in the DVD version, at least you can read them in most scenes. The self referential jokes about english translation and subtitles are still there.
The best of Kung Food!
Mission: Impossible II (2000)
Same plot as a Hitchcock's film Notorious
OK, so it's my mistake to watch classic films, and still try and watch modern cinema. I can't really include examples without falling under the spoiler rule, but it must have been a conscious decision on the part of the screenwriters. If you know Notorious, just sit back and enjoy the MI2 explosions... the plot's not that important anyway.
I probably wouldn't have been able to quite put my finger on it, if I hadn't watched them within a week of each other.