Of Swords and Parasols

The Four: The latest adaptation of Wen Rulan's "The Four Great Constables" series, and a pretty enjoyable but not really amazing wuxia that involves zombies, ladyspies, teamy antics, cute puppies, superpowers, squads of ladyspies, lots of political and spy shenanigans and investigations, and Liu Yi Fei killing people with her brain. There's also a romantic triangle that works pretty well, despite the fact that I'm not entirely certain why anyone was interested in anyone else aside from their all being quite nice examples of their respective sexes. It's the first part of a trilogy and it very much watches like one, though it stands up pretty well on its own.

Geisha Assassin: Exactly what it says in the title, save that there's virtually no geisha bits after the first 7 minutes, aside from Our Heroine's father saying that no daughter of his will be a geisha, and a couple of her opponents getting huffy about fighting a geisha. Our Heroine is on a quest to avenge her father, and his killer throws a bunch of opponents in her path. That's pretty much the entirety of the plot. There are flashbacks to Our Heroine's childhood that attempt to have a plot by explaining why her father died. but those pretty much just made me go "Dude, why didn't you just say that from the start?" Nothing memorable, but an entertaining way to spend 80 minutes if you like vengeful heroines and fight scenes.

The Messengers: Spooky and atmospheric movie in which a family takes over a derelict farm, and the 3-year-old son, Ben, and 16-year-old daughter, Jess, start seeing ghosts. Creepy ghosts that crawl on the walls and and keep trying to drag Jess into the basement. There's nothing in it that hasn't been in at least one other horror movie, but it was all put together pretty well and it got the tension and the spooks right. There is, though, a lot of NO BABY DON'T FOLLOW THE HAUNTED TOY TRACTOR DOWN THE HALL NO!! throughout, though, just for the extra bit of stress.

The Moth Diaries: A wonderfully atmospheric (and beautifully filmed) gothic movie with lesbian subtext (and the bit of text) out the wazoo, starring Sarah Bolger, Lily Cole, and Sarah Gadon. Still recovering from her father's suicide, a teenager named Becca (Bolger) returns to her boarding school and her best friend, Lucy (Gadon) and becomes suspicious when Lucy appears to be all but hypnotized by a mysterious new student, Ernessa (Cole), shunning all of her own friends and taking up "Ernessa says..." as her refrain. While studying Sebastian le Fanu's Carmilla in class, Becca becomes obsessed with the idea that Ernessa might be a vampire who is seducing and controlling Lucy. I liked it a lot, especially (in addition to all the focus on female relationships) since it focused on older vampire myths and kinda almost ignored the fact that Dracula exists. (Not that I want to slam it or anything, but it's nice when things don't assume that it has to be your basis for vampire stories.)

Painted Skin: The Resurrection: A sequel set 500 years after the first movie. The fox demon, Xiao Wei, is freed from centuries of imprisonment and sets out to find the reincarnation of her human lover so that she can steal hearts and become human. This time around, Zhao Wei is playing a scarred warrior princess and Chen Kun is the general she's in love with (and who appears to think his emo over feeling responsible for her scars is way more important than anything she might happen to think or feel on the matter), and Xiao Wei persuades the princess to trade her heart for Xiao Wei's skin. The writers seem to realize that Zhao Wei and Zhou Xun have far more chemistry than Chen Kun is able to muster with anyone (One day, I will watch a movie with that dude and he will not be the most boring thing ever in it. This was not that movie. Moving on.) and they have tons of scenes together and the writers appear to forget that they're supposed to be romantic rivals, and that the movie isn't supposed to be a supernatural lesbian romance. There's also a subplot with a demon hunter and a bird demon, played by Feng Shao Feng and Yang Mi respectively, that's rather adorable. (Though, are there any stories out there where the male demon falls for a human, or do only female demons do that?) There are some odd bits with consent and outer beauty themes, but over all I liked it a lot, and, frankly, the movie was so pretty that I sometimes forgot there was a plot involved.

Taichi Zero/Taichi Hero: A rather odd yet entertaining steampunk-kung fu duology that should be watched together. A young man named Lu Chen is born with a "demon horn" that makes him a natural kung fu prodigy, and which gives him superhuman powers when the horn is damaged. When it starts to endanger his life, he travels to a distant village to learn Chen-style kung fu, which baqlances Yin and Yang and can save his life. Except that the Chen family doesn't allow anyone outside the immediate family to learn the style, and a distant cousin of the family wants to destroy the village to make room for a railway. Flashbacks and backstories are largely shown as silent movies, fights have video game life meters, circles highlight key points in moves, and there's a display of opponents Lu Chen has to face. There are also captions that frequently show up for a variety of things (most important characters get a captain saying who the actor is, sometimes with a well-known work, or their athletic/martial arts cred, and at one point a character blurts out a confession of love and the person on the receiving end sees a multiple choice question regarding possible motives) , and then steampunk elements such as tanks, clockwork suits that mimic kung fu superpowers, and flying machines. It's very funny (sometimes in an awkward way) and has good fightscenes, not to mention cameos of as many people as they could possibly cram in. I'm not sure I always followed it, but I enjoyed it. That said, it violates all the laws of what is just and right by having Eddie Peng play a character who is first a jerk, and later straight up villainous, and that is just something that my brain cannot process.

Wu Dang: Set in the 19-teens, several treasure hunters converge on a martial arts tournament and use it for cover while they search for the seven treasures of Wu Dang. One, an archeology professor played by Vincent Zhao, wants the treasures so he can cure his daughter of the same terminal illness that killed his wife, and another, a martial artist played by Yang Mi, only wants one of the treasures, a sword that belongs to her family. Naturally, they team up and have bickering adventures. It's a pretty straightforward adventure ovies with lots of good fights, and I give it lots of points for letting Yang Mi and the daughter's characters have bonding moments, and that Vincent Zhao's character (and the movie itself) didn't think an illness that would kill her somewhere doen the road didn't mean his daughter couldn't have an active life, or that it stopped her from being a perfectly competent and capable person, and let her participate in the tournament. I was worried for a bit that I was going to have to retroactively hate it for the ending, but then it saved itself literally at the last minute. BTW, one day, I will have to think about why I only find Vincent Zhao attractive when he has short hair, when I'm normally a longhair appreciating girl. (Also, I want Yang Mi's wardrobe from this movie. And the ability to pull it off.)