I haven’t read Journey to the West and I’m completely unfamiliar with the story line, so I can’t vouch for the accuracy of this adaptation of the Chinese Classic. However, if you’re looking for pure cinematic mayhem, Chinese Odyssey Part One and Part Two are as good as you get.
From: Hong Kong, AsiaRead The Full Review
Watch: Trailer, Tubi, Vudu, Buy on Amazon
Next: Life of Brian, Star Wars, Kung Fu Hustle
Ip Man is the honourable Chinese version of a Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone. He has his own one-liners, develops his own enemies, and has some sweet martial arts moves. Best of all, Ip man isn’t even a fictional character! This Martial Arts treat is definitely worth a watch!
The films opens with a brief look at Ip Man practising Kung-Fu at home instead of attending a Kung-Fu competition in his local town. Unsatisfied with the quality of the challengers, one of the Kung-Fu leaders goes to visit Ip Man to challenge Ip Man to a secret fight. Ip Man’s wife seems pretty annoyed, but Ip Man assures her “it won’t take long”. Sure enough, Ip Man beats up the top Kung-Fu fighter in town with ease. Someone even ends up seeing the fight and tells the whole town about it to the annoyance of Ip Man and the local Kung-Fu leader.
There are two groups of enemies that Ip Man and his community encounter in this film. First there is a group from the north of China looking for people to bully. Later, there is the Japanese occupiers that suppress the Chinese population during World War Two.
The group from Northern China appear shabby. They are poorly dressed, unshaven, and slurp their noodle soup. As a result, the Southern Chinese seem more civilised and clean in comparison to their Northern neighbours. Maybe this director from Hong Kong still holds some grudges against mainland China in stereotyping these bandits.
Secondly, the Japanese come and disrupt the Southerners way of life. Their occupation is shown in the cinematography of the film, as the wide range of colours in the early part of the movie (reds, greens, browns) are switched for a lot of grey. The film looks more like a black and white movie at some points! The director uses this colour switch to emphasise the hardship and poverty under the Japanese occupation.
In addition to his portrayals of Southern China’s enemies, Director Wilson Yip has a load of incredible action scenes. The speed of the fights and clarity of the actors moves are truly awesome. It is like watching a beautiful ballet. Just pay attention to the fights as it must have taken a lot of takes and rehearsing to get all these moves perfect.
If you’re into action and/or martial arts, give this one a watch!
A Simple Life Film Difficulty Ranking: 2
This film is based on a true story, of a Chinese girl (Ah Tao) orphaned because of the Japanese occupation. We see Ah Tao as an old woman, having spent her life serving one family. Only one man is still living in China, Roger. We meet him sitting in an empty train station in remote China waiting for a train to take him back home. We first see Ah Tao wandering into a grocer’s refrigeration room to pick out some food.
Roger arrives home and we instantly understand his relationship with Ah Tao. He hardly acknowledges her as she places food in front of him. He even leans back and crosses his legs when she puts a plate in front of him, as if he is a high class businessman and she is a waitress. Next, we see her washing and hanging up his clothes. She even cooks Ox tongue for him (his favourite food) despite telling him it is bad for his health. She is like a mum that can’t accept that her son has grown up, whilst he is too spoilt to lose the benefits.
Their relationship only starts to develop after Ah Tao suffers a stroke in the opening minutes and requests to be put in a retirement home. His search for a retirement home is a quick insight into the retirement home business and Hong Kong society. The manager, a friend of Roger, admits that owning Retirement homes is a great business because Hong Kong has an ageing population that has access to social security payments. Also during Ah Tao’s stay in the home, we witness men begging for prostitute money, visitors that take away their gifts, and New Year celebrations. It becomes a microcosm through which we see Hong Kong society.
A Simple Life is a heart warming film. It centres around the relationship between an old maidservant and one of the ‘sons’ that she helped raise. Both are very sincere and reserved but still express their love for each other in ways that will make you feel happy. It will make you want to go pay a visit to your (probably) neglected older relatives.
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