Reviews

Movie

Holiday

Directed by Yun-ho Yang, starring Min-su Choi, Hyun Dong

While many Korean film fans hail Holiday as a must-see, there are some major flaws with its noble claim to be the tale of a call for social justice.

This flick - released last year - is based on the true story of a prison break that ends in tragedy. In the late 1980s, the law gave wardens the right to lengthen prison terms for petty crimes by decades. So, a group of prisoners break out of the prison - not to escape, but to demand justice before the nation's president.

As noble as this message might be, the film is just packed with far too much melodrama and too many over-the-top clichs for people to take it seriously. The one-dimensional warden goes out of his way to be cocky, snide and evil with his every spoken syllable and gesture.

The prisoners are portrayed as having schoolboy innocence, which is intended to garnish viewers' sympathies. The music, the pacing and the agonizingly long death scenes all serve to create as much sympathy for the prisoners as possible. The point could have been made more powerfully with greater subtlety.

It is reported that the crew paid $90,000 for the copyright of Bee Gees' Holiday, for which the film is titled. Liu Jun

Lawrence of Arabia

Directed by David Lean, starring Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif

This is one of the rare film epics that was truly made for the big screen - a bold vision that despite having no romantic love story, no explicit violence and no real action, manages to sustain interest for nearly four hours.

Four hours! But just like any master storyteller, director David Lean makes the time fly. This is the true-life tale of a British officer named Lawrence who convinced various Arab tribes to band together and take World War I to the Turks. He did this with a mix of cunning, common sense and daring. He crossed deserts that were considered uncrossable; he turned opportunists into patriots, and he did it with an effete manner not usually associated with military strongmen. Lawrence is perhaps the most camp and enigmatic hero in movie history.

He is played by that great mugger Peter O'Toole, whose turn would have been completely over the top had he not so much room to fill. Much of the time is spent, after all, in the desert, and only a performance verging on gross theatricality would fill up the vast space. Aside from breathtaking, desolate scenery, Lean was also armed with a sharp script by Robert Bolt, which can be forgiven for its occasional long-windedness because of its poetic and barbed dialogue.

Ben Davey

Book

Fleeting splendors

The Fleeting Splendor of Yuanmingyuan is one of the best albums by Yang Zi, who has painted for a series of books about the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and other such landmarks. His works feature unique, if not peculiar, angles.

This time, the protagonist who guides readers through the grandiose imperial garden of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) is a girl, who sometimes appears with a leopard's face and tail.

Her hybridism enables the girl-turning-leopardess to leap into peach blossoms covering huge rocks and climb onto a giant tree to get a closer look at a building where the emperor used to enjoy Chinese and Western music.

Unlike Yang's other albums, which appear somewhat scary and feature ghosts who once lived or fought at the portrayed site, this book is more cheerful. Even in the few scenes depicting the burning of the garden by Western powers, the fire and drops of blood are more artistically rendered.

Yang also demonstrates a deep interest in architecture, painting all sorts of buildings in detail but combining traditional Chinese and Western styles.

The Fleeting Splendor of Yuanmingyuan, Foreign Languages Press, 75 yuan ($10)

LJ

(China Daily 07/17/2007 page20)