New York, I Love You

“New York, I Love You” is a film with a collaboration of 11 short love stories. Each of the short stories direct by different directors, all the directors come up with different ideas of love stories that based in New York. In the film, we get to see different types of characters and different types of stories. It is a film that without a plot, so audiences have to be very concentrate when they are watching because you will never know when it will jump to another story and when it will end.

The actor and actress in the film include Orlando Bloom, Maggie Q, Natalie Portman, Bradley Cooper, Shu Qi and so on. There are stories like a composer that needs to read, a kid that goes to prom with girl in a wheelchair and saw his ex girlfriend, a retired opera singer who wants to commit suicide and meets the hotel bellboy, an old couples takes a walk on their anniversary, an artist who wants to draw a portrait of a girl who works in a Chinese herbal store, and so on.

Abe and Mitzie 

The part I like the most in the film is the old couple, Abe and Mitzie which played by Eli Wallach and Cloris Leachman who walk to the same place during their anniversary. It is very lovely although they quarrel a lot on the way they walk to their destination. There’s other way for them to reach the destination but they choose to walk all the way there, which shows how lovely they are. Although there are lots of complaint from the wife but it shows that how she care her husband. She complaint that her husband walks too slow but she actually wait for him every time when her husband was left behind. It is very touching that no matter how inconvenient for the husband to walk to the destination but he insists to walk because is their anniversary and his wife accompany him all the way to the destination. Reach at the destination, the wife lay on her husband’s shoulder with a sweet smile and a sweet kiss from the husband on the wife’s forehead. I would say this is the most romantic story in “New York, I Love You”.

A girl that work in a Chinese herbal store and the artist 

Another scene that caught my attention is an artist who wants to draw a portrait of a girl who works in a Chinese herbal store, which played by Ugur Yucel and Shu Qi respectively. The story is about Shu Qi was working in a Chinese herbal store and one day she bump into the artist Ugur Yucel. Ugur Yucel was impress with her good looking face and he approach to Shu Qi and saying that he would like to draw a portrait of her. Is too sudden so she refuses to be his model but the artist insist to give her a name card and ask her to find him anytime if she change her mind. While she went back to the Chinese herbal store, she starts to think whether should help the artist to be his model. At last she decided to change her mind, she went to the address that shown on the name card to find the artist. Then when she reaches at the place, she found out that the artist had just passed away. A guy came to her and passes her a portrait, while she look at it is a portrait of her. Her face was full of regret; she should agree to be his model at first. The moral of the story is live life with no regrets. Life is too short for us to regret.

Retired Opera Singer and Hotel Bellboy

 Of course, there is a scene that makes me think because I don’t understand. It was the scene that a retired opera singer who wants to commit suicide and she meets a hotel bellboy, which played by Julie Christie and Shia LaBeouf. The story starts with the retired opera singer checked into the hotel room and then she meets the bellboy who helps her. The bellboy was very helpful and he prepares everything for the women. There is a part where the women open the window, standing in front of the window then the bellboy came in with a trolley that what he prepares for the women. The women then walk to the bed, both of them sitting on the bed and chatting. Then, the bellboy stand up and walk towards the window, falls to his death. Then, the scene jump to the hotel manager (John Hurt) looks out the balcony where the body should be and tells her there is nothing. This story was very confuse at first, is hard for me to understand. After the movie, I was discussing with my friends and one of them saying that the bellboy was actually an illusion.

Overall, it is an interesting film that consists of up to 11 short love stories. It makes me understand live life with no regrets and love is everywhere. Love is sweet; Love is bitter; Love is unconditional. 

The Overture

Poster of The Overture

Before the screening, we were told that we will be watching a Thai movie and the first thing that came to my mind – HORROR movie! It’s very normal that people will think of Horror movie at the mention of Thai movie. Then Ms.Lina told us that it is not a horror movie. To be honest, if it is a horror movie, I will not watch it because it is totally not the genre I like or else I just wouldn’t touch it at all! The Thai movie we watched was The Overture, which is known as Hom Rong in Thailand.

Ranak-ek

The Overture is a Thai movie that is directed by Ittisoontorn Vichailat in the year of 2004. The story of The Overture is inspired by the true-life story of a musician in Thailand – Luang Pradit Phairao. It is a Thai musical drama film and the instrument used in the film is Ranak-ek. It’s my first time seeing this type of traditional instrument and although it looks like a xylophone, the look of Ranak-ek is more towards the oldies and classic. 

Sorn 

The story of the film begins with a little boy, Sorn (played as a young man by Anuchit Sapanphong and as an older man by Adul Dulyarat) chasing the butterfly and the butterfly stop at the instrument, Ranak-ek, that is placed in his brother’s room. Sorn wants to be like his brother, who is a master musician in Ranak-ek. His family especially his father disagree with it because his brother is killed in a fistfight with rival musicians. His father decides to keep the Ranak-ek away from him because he doesn’t want Sorn to play with it anymore. But because of the passion that Sorn has towards Ranak-ek, he secretly steals the Ranak-ek and plays with it without letting his father know it. Then, Sorn’s actions successfully persuade his father to let him become a musician in Ranak-ek. 

Sorn becomes a talented musician in Ranak-ek, he can guess correctly which music note is played by others without looking. That makes him become a more headstrong and lack of discipline child because he thinks that he is very good in playing Ranak-ek.  That is until he is humiliated by a master musician, Kun In (Narongrit Tosa-nya) in a competition. Then he becomes frustrated with himself because he realizes that there are others who play better than him. So he force himself to practice more and in whatever ways to train himself to become stronger than Kun In. He wants to be better than Kun In and beat him down. He is later sent in to the palace for more formal training and to perform and be involved in competition. 

Sorn and Kun In after the competition

In the end, Sorn wins the competition. Instead of being arrogant, he shows his respect to Kun In. On the other hand, Kun In also does not hate Sorn but asks him to keep up his good work. Then, the movie ends with Sorn becoming old and finally dies after playing Ranak-ek.

The main actor - Anuchit Sapanphong

In the movie, the way Sorn plays Ranak-ek catches my attention. This is especially when he plays during the competition. What’s more, Ms.Lina told us that she actually interviewed the main character Anuchit Sapanphong and saying that he used 6 months to practice Ranak-ek and he was the one playing in the film. His effort makes me respect him even more because the way he plays in the competition looks very professional and it looks like he has learned Ranak-ek for many years but it turns out that he just uses 6 months to practice it. 

In conclusion, this film tells audiences to not give up easily on what you like. Hard work will pay off. It is a very interesting film that is worth to watch and to be honest, it is the movie I like the most compared to the last two movies I had watched in this class.

BRAVE

Brave Poster

“BRAVE” is an animated movie produced by Pixar and Disney in 2012.  It is a story that talks about a princess, Merida from the Scottish kingdom of Clan Dun Broch, on how she is brought up and how she hates to be a princess. The characteristics of Merida are very different from those Disney’s princess like Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White or Jasmine (from Aladdin). The characteristics of Merida are more similar to Mulan because she doesn’t look like a princess in the movie but is a skilled archer in the movie.

When Merida was still a little girl

The story begins with Merida’s childhood life. Her father, King Fergus, gives her a bow as a present during her birthday. She loves her bow very much and she loves to ride on her horse, Angus. The 1^st time as she is playing archery with her bow and picks it back is the 1^st time that she sees the real will o’ the wisp. She is very surprised and excited when she sees it that she runs back to her parents and tells them that what she has seen, Just then, while they are talking happily there comes a big bear that tries to attack them. That is why her father loses his leg.

Merida riding on horse

The story then continues with a few years forward where Merida is no longer a young little girl. Her mother, who is the Queen of the kingdom, Queen Elinor becomes even stricter to Merida. There are so many lessons of what a princess should do and what a princess should not do from Queen Elinor to her daughter Merida.  Merida doesn’t like everything that is planned by her mother. The only thing that Merida likes is the only day of the month that she doesn’t have to be a princess. She is allowed to do whatever she wants because she doesn’t have to wear nicely like a princess and act like a princess on that day. She wakes up early in the morning, goes out riding on the horse together with her favorite bow for shooting. 

Merida and Queen Elinor

On the day that Merida doesn’t have to be princess, Merida goes back and during their dinner time, Queen Elinor starts to mention about Merida’s marriage. Queen Elinor thinks that it is time that Merida should get married so she decides to let the princes from the other clans to take part in archery games to fight for the princess’ heart. The game ends up being ruined by Merida because she doesn’t want to follow her mother’s plan. Both of them become embroiled in an argument which results in her mother turning into a bear.

Queen Elinor turned into a bear

It is really funny when Queen Elinor turns into bear but she still cares that others will see her naked body and even though she has turned into a bear, she still really cares of her queen’s crown. 

Merida catching fishes for Queen Elinor as breakfast

My favorite part of the movie is when Merida and her mother who has turned into a bear catch fishes together at the seaside for breakfast. It shows how the mother has changed from a queen’s attitude that still uses fork and knife to eat barbequed fish to not caring about how others look at her when she just eats with her bare hands and learn how to catch fishes. Another favorite part is when the mother bear fights with the big bear Mor’du just to protect her family. 

My favorite character is the 3 triplets brother Hamish, Hubbert, Harris of Merida. 3 of them are really funny and cute; they can sacrifice or do anything just to get their favorite desserts. It is really funny that how 3 of them help Merida and mother bear to leave the castle then get the enchanted dessert as a reward from Merida and turn into 3 little bears. 

In conclusion, BRAVE is a nice animated movie overall. There are not much of animated movies that are about family like BRAVE. An animated movie that is suitable to all generations no matter for the younger generations or the older generations. A worth watching animated movie! 

Review of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa

The poster of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa

Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, it was the first local movie that I've watched. To be honest, it is a film that I will not watch at the cinema because  rarely watch local films. Because we have to write a review about the movie, therefore at the beginning I forced myself to concentrate on the movie. The first question comes into my mind was " Is this really a local film?"   I bet all of the classmates will never know it was a local film if Ms.Lina never mention before she show us the film. 

 The storyline of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa was about the journey of Merong Mahawangsa (Stephen Rahman) escorting a Roman Prince Marcus (Gavin Stenhouse) to wed a beautiful Chinese Princess Meng Li Hua (Jing Lusi) during the 2nd century. After they reached at the island, they got attacked by Geruda because the Geruda decided to kidnap Princess Meng Li Hua. 

Prince Marcus and Princess Meng Li Hua

 Both prince and princess were unwilling to get marry with a person that doesn’t even meet before. So Princess Meng Li Hua decided to run away with her handmaiden Ying Ying (Nell Ng) when the day Prince Marcus arrived. Although she successfully ran away but she and her handmaiden bumped into the Prince Marcus at the forest. Then, Prince Marcus realizes that she was the Han princess and knew that she decided to run away from the marriage. That was what Prince Marcus wants to so he decided to bring both of them out from the forest. It is hard for me to accept that both of them fall in love in the forest during Prince Marcus helping Princess Meng Li Hua to ran away from the wedding? So it was like 5 minutes ago they still hate or dislike each other but after 5 minutes they fall in love with each other. Sounds crazy and funny though.  Further more, it is hard to accept that a Han Princess can speak English fluently and several languages but is acceptable because she's a princess so she can learn anything she want but what about the handmaiden Ying Ying? A handmaiden can communicate with the Princess Meng Li Hua in english fluently? 

Merong Wangsa

"Sampai masa tibanya waktu, 

Redup hati kaum berdua, 

Bila dua jasad menjadi satu, 

Hidup mati jadi bersama"

My favourite character in this movie is Merong Wangsa (Stephen Rahman Hughes). There are pros and cons of him in this movie. The pros were he has good characteristics in the movie. He is a warrior that willing to sacrifice himself for the others in the movie and also he escort Prince Marcus to the island and rescue Prince Marcus when he know Prince Marcus is in danger because he promise that he will escort him safely to the island. In another hand, the cons are his Malay language delivery was quite bad in the movie, maybe that’s the reason why the film doesn’t look local due to the English language delivery in the movie. He is a very handsome man but I think that his acting in this movie was a bit too over in some of the scenes, maybe is because he used to perform in plays and musicals. Although there’s a lot of cons for Merong Wangsa in the movie but it is still sad that the movie ends with the death of Merong Wangsa. He’s such a warrior that sacrifices himself for everyone. That scene shows that he truly understand about what his mother told him via voice over, when he did the sacrifice.

Overall, it is a worth watching movie although there’s still much improvement needed but I guess it is already consider a big improvement compare to all the local movies we had.