Harrison Chute

Deduction, Not Reduction | Lady Detective Shadow (2018) Review

September 16, 2023

I’ll be honest, I watched this movie in three installments, against the ticking clock of a 48-hour rental on Amazon Prime Video. For the first few minutes of the second session, I was convinced the playback hadn’t remembered where I left off. “Didn’t I already see this part where they force their way into the inn, witness a fight, then talk with the police?” I sure had, but it happens again, with variations enough for a kind of “can you spot the difference?” puzzle. To be honest once more, I had no earthly idea what was going on in this movie, and I doubt an undisrupted viewing experience would’ve done the trick. I may be among that special few who find kung fu movie plots confusing, but I have a feeling, in this case, I can share the blame: myself, the movie, and fate (as authored by the logistics of international film distribution). … More Deduction, Not Reduction | Lady Detective Shadow (2018) Review

K-Drama Report: Hello, My Twenties! Part II

August 25, 2023

I’d also recommend Hello, My Twenties! but I can’t yet because we have the rare second season to contend with. So to cap off the first, I want to start with something a little bit different, which is to review the show’s character dynamics. It’s an assertion on my part that they’re the heart of the series, but that may or may not be true. In the meantime, they at least set parameters for my expectations going forward. (Because I love them so much!) … More K-Drama Report: Hello, My Twenties! Part II

K-Drama Report: Hello, My Twenties! (2016)

August 19, 2023

A couple of years ago, I started seeing clips online for a K-drama entitled Work Later, Drink Now, starring Eunji from Apink, and I was frustrated because it never showed up on any legal streaming platforms. I really liked the idea of a show that centered on a group of women, in a more casual setting than the workplaces of, say, Search: WWW. And somehow this led me to Hello, My Twenties!, but I think it was probably just that clip of Ryu Hwa-young planting one on Han Seung-yeon, and I’ve got both shows mixed up in my head. But when it came time to choose which one to watch first, the occasion of my 30th birthday made the decision easy: I will start watching the show called Hello, My Twenties! … More K-Drama Report: Hello, My Twenties! (2016)

The Oldboy and I | A Comedy on Purpose

August 19, 2023

Oldboy is one of the key titles from a time in my life when I watched movies a lot. Not a breadth of movies, but a small selection over and over again. I was studying to be a moviemaker myself, so I was doing a lot of director commentaries, and I doubt I was absorbing much. Actually, there’s this lesson you learn early in film studies, that anything substantive can be gleaned from watching bad movies. False! Sure, it’s a kind of deconstruction, and it’s easy to see the mistakes. “I won’t make a mistake like that,” you say, and then dream about what you’d do instead. But it’s harder to visualize what you’d do, especially once you’re in it, suddenly realizing that this successful execution of a payoff doesn’t make for an actual scene, as that’s an entirely different step. First you set everything up inside the broader structure, and then you have to ask, “What might be cool?” It’s a process of construction, and this is a separate discipline. … More The Oldboy and I | A Comedy on Purpose

08/12/2023 – Pop-Pop the Champagne

August 12, 2023

It’s been With Eyes East tradition on August 12th to celebrate the birthday of Bomi from Apink, but this year, I actually wanted to pivot a bit – not too far – from Apink to Red Velvet. From what I can tell, their 2022 release “Birthday” is considered one of their lesser singles, and it is indeed an oddity like “Zimzalabim” or “RBB.” The video is a total-war assault of bizarreness, without the slightest threat of context for the events or landscapes or creatures. We have a cyclops guy like a Tohl Narita Ultraman monster, a yeti guy from, you know, yetis, and the Gingerbread Man but as a king? It’s like a weird, terrible remix of things that we can sort of place, as if assembled by AI or sheer accident. This is what the K-pop channel looks like within the Videodrome signal. … More 08/12/2023 – Pop-Pop the Champagne

Made in Japan

July 26, 2023

In Little League baseball, the best player on each team was usually the pitcher. It was an observable rule of thumb, similar to the one which held that the worst player in the entire league was me. Unfortunately, I was probably the only Asian player that year – or rather, those years, because I played baseball for far longer than I understood why. So, then, you grow up and observe that it’s different in Major League baseball, that the pitcher usually doesn’t even bat! And by that point, mercifully, the Asian kid is no longer playing sports. Enter Shohei Ohtani, widely considered the best player in professional baseball – maybe ever. For starters, when it comes to his upcoming free agency, the number being bandied about for a contract is half a billion dollars, the highest in history. … More Made in Japan

Kicks to the Face Before Breakfast | Lady Whirlwind (1972) Review

July 19, 2023

Since we’re all in the “video game adaptation” mood lately, I might suggest a challenge: a faithful film version of an RPG, say, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The hero has a task, and then they spend the entire movie on side quests. This was my thinking during Lady Whirlwind, one of the early star vehicles for Angela Mao. Having costarred with him in Enter the Dragon, she’s sometimes considered “the female Bruce Lee,” but I was skeptical, even watching her early scenes here. The character she’s playing is cool and confident, but her facial expressions tell a different story in the midst of fighting. Does “female Bruce Lee” simply mean “female martial arts star”? And does a woman score the title just by being good, suggesting that we don’t expect greatness? It takes me a moment to realize that she’s taking on a dozen guys at a time, and most critically, that like a lot of Bruce Lee characters, she’s kind of a dick. She is certainly not the hero, and in fact, wants the hero dead. Thank God she spends the entire movie on side quests. … More Kicks to the Face Before Breakfast | Lady Whirlwind (1972) Review

Two Gods

July 16, 2023

It’s news to me that a Godzilla movie is releasing this year. Now, typically, this has been cause for indigestion, being no fan of the Legendary MonsterVerse. Granted, that new movie bears the title Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, which is just goofily sincere enough. Not for me to see, but for something. No, a Godzilla movie is coming down from Toho Studios as well, and it’s entitled Godzilla Minus One. Sounds a lot like the proposed title for the third Jaws movie (Jaws 3, People 0), but there’s a weight behind it. Taking place immediately after World War II, we find Japan at “zero,” and Godzilla’s arrival will bump them down to the negative. I’m not 100% certain, but I believe this is the first Godzilla period piece, and that’s already exciting. … More Two Gods

I’m a Cow(girl) | DOA: Dead or Alive (2006) Review

July 6, 2023

DOA: Dead or Alive gets off to a rough start. We find Princess Kasumi awkwardly sitting on a throne and a dork named Hayabusa awkwardly standing nearby and expositing. Then Kasumi gets up and leaves, trading awkward dialogue with Hayabusa as he follows. She wants to leave the palace to find her dear brother Hayate, but “Princess Kasumi,” he warns, “the guards will kill you!” So she goes outside and it’s a veritable Curse of the Golden Flower army. And yet, nothing happens. A pink-haired Ayane shows up to further exposit awkwardly, and then Kasumi turns off the gravity and leaps over the gate, over the Great Wall of China, and over a cliff. No fight scene, but a lot of terrible acting, terrible special effects, and terrible everything. As far as video game adaptations go, it’s pretty faithful. … More I’m a Cow(girl) | DOA: Dead or Alive (2006) Review

Siren: Survive the Island – Final Report

June 12, 2023

Boy, that Physical: 100 finale must have left scars on all of us. In the back of my mind, there was such a sense of “contestants vs. producers” throughout that, in the end, it was easy to blame everything on the anonymous, unseen puppet masters doubtlessly manipulating every frame of this so-called “reality” programming to whichever nefarious ends. By the time I’m writing about its spiritual sequel Siren – hoping to give it any kind of boost – proper accreditation never enters my mind. The contestants, sure. Those ladies are badass and I love them. But the bloodsucking producers? No! And I find myself now winding toward an apology not just because the creator of Siren is also a woman, though that certainly helps. Her name is Lee Eun-kyung, and with Siren: Survive the Island, I think she’s done something really great. … More Siren: Survive the Island – Final Report