The Equation of Love and Death 李米的猜想 (2008, China)
I love actress Zhou Xun 周迅. I've loved her since one of her earlier films, "Suzhou River" (2000). She's now an A-list actress in China, but not all of her roles have been great – in particular "Ming Ming" (2006), which is probably the only movie I've walked out of the theater before the end.
But she still is a reason to watch a film, and she has gotten glowing reviews for this film, even when the review of the film was weak.
The Chinese title translates to "Li Mi's Guess", or it could be "supposition" or "musing". I don't know who came up with the strange English title, which might suggest the film is offering something more deep or philosophical. It doesn't.
The opening sequence doesn't help matters as the main character rattles off numbers as if she's trying to figure something esoteric out; as if she has some insight into the human condition through math to figure out life's problems. She doesn't.
She's a taxi driver. There, that's it, ignore the English title and the opening sequence, and that's the starting point of this film. She's a taxi driver looking for her boyfriend, missing for several years, and hoping one of her fares will recognize him through a magazine she keeps in the backseat that she has filled with pictures of him.
Unfortunately, she gets mixed up in a plot involving a fare that turns out to be a couple of dim-witted and desperate drug mules, a random suicide and, oddly enough, the object of her search.
Not a bad film, not a great film. I'm happy giving it a 7 out of 10 tomato fresh rating. A decent movie; not a waste of time, but not necessarily a must-see. Zhou Xun fans should definitely check it out, and I also recommend it for fans of foreign and indie films.
The Message 風聲 (2009, China)
Zhou Xun also co-stars with an ensemble cast in this more mainstream Chinese thriller, set during Japan's occupation of China in the 1930's.
Japan invades and occupies China and sets up a puppet government. Naturally, a resistance arises and the government sets up an anti-insurgency agency. However, there is a mole in the agency and the Japanese provisional government is set to weed him/her out by planting a fake message, and when the bait is taken, the few people in the agency who had access to the message are taken and sequestered for them to figure out who is the mole. Really good in all aspects. If the set up appeals, I highly recommend it. 8 out of 10 tomatoes.
I've commented before on other Asian countries' cinematic portrayals of wartime Japan, and how I think one of the reasons they won't let up on throwing Japan's wartime aggression on the screen is because Japan has never really owned up to its atrocities. The Japanese aren't shown to be too bad in this movie, however, it's interesting to note that at one celebratory rally, people are waving German Nazi flags along with the Japanese Rising Sun. And in the facility where the suspects are sequestered, a large Nazi banner is hanging alongside the Rising Sun.
I have to wonder about the historical accuracy of whether the Nazi flag would have been flown along with Japan's flag (not sure about the accuracy of whether they would have been flying the Rising Sun flag, either, since that was, in particular, the flag of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The army used Japan's national flag, if I remember correctly).
Either it was historically accurate, or it's brazenly aligning the Japanese with Nazi Germany and not letting anyone forget who was the bad guy.
