Enjoy the Sauce

Film: Do Ma Daan (Peking Opera Blues)
Format: Video from The Magic Flashdrive on laptop.

Okay, I’ve seen some weird shit in my lifetime, but few things as completely nonsensical as Do Ma Daan (Peking Opera Blues). I mean, I’ve seen Eraserhead and Liquid Sky, and both of those films made way more sense than this one did. I’m not even sure where to begin. I typically spend some time rehashing the plot to help make sense of the film and to highlight particular aspects of it, but with this film, I have nowhere to begin. Here’s a quick synopsis: stuff happens.

Because of this, what you are reading may well be the shortest review I’ve ever written, because without a plot that makes any sense, I have only the performances (such as I can make sense of them), the action sequences, and what evidently passes for comedy in mid-‘80s China. There are some pretty funny moments, I’ll admit. But there’s also an incredible amount of unintended humor created by the single worst subtitle track I have ever seen in my life.

Martial Arts Porn

Film: Wong Fei Hung (Once Upon a Time in China)
Format: DVD from NetFlix on kick-ass portable DVD player.

Every now and then I get a film that I just don’t get. I spent the last two hours watching Wong Fei Hung (Once Upon a Time in China), and I have no idea what the hell happened. There’s an awful lot of fighting and some pretty tasty wire work, but as for plot, I’m at a complete loss. If you’ve never seen this film, You can guess just about as well as I can. Seriously, there are some truly kick ass fights and some stunts that are difficult to believe including a massive battle on a series of ladders, but I still have not a single clue as to the story.

Here’s what I know, and it’s not much. There’s a guy named Wong Fei Hung (Jet Li) and there are a bunch of people from America in China. The Americans are the bad guys because they are trying to Westernize China. You can tell they’re the bad guys because they’re obviously bad in a melodramatic way. There are also some Chinese people who have been to American and have now returned, including a woman called Aunt 13 (Rosamund Kwan). And there’s another guy (Shi-kwan Yen) who wants to start a martial arts school and decides that to do that he needs to kick the snot bubbles out of Wong Fei Hung. There’s also a guy who might be a martial artist and might be a circus performer, but really just seems to get in the way. Everyone calls him Foon (Biao Yuen), which might actually be his name, but also sounds like something really awesome to call someone pissing you off. There’s also a criminal gang that is evidently kidnapping Chinese girls to ship them off to use as prostitutes. I’m going to revert to Wikipedia for a quick plot summary and see if it makes any more sense.

Yeah. It doesn’t. It probably should, but it really doesn’t.