A ONE AND A TWO (YI YI)

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA

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2000 - Taiwan (Atom Films, Nemuru Otoko Seisaku Iinkai, Omega Project)

DIRECTOR: Edward Yang
SCRIPT: Edward Yang
PHOTOGRAPHY: Wei-han Yang
MUSIC: Kai-Li Peng

      There is an old Polish poem based on folklore fairy tales about a noble man, Twardowski, who signs a pact with the devil. Wealth and all in exchange for the soul. Usual T&C's apply. The repossession of the soul was supposed to take place in Rome, which made it quite easy for Twardowski to wave his middle finger in front of the devil's face for long years simply by not travelling to Italy. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Of course, as it always happens in those kind of stories, all this fooling around wasn't meant to last. And so, one night, Twardowski found himself in an inn, where the devil jumped at him demanding the soul. Twardowski tried to shrug the devil off but it turned out that the name of the inn, which he didn't pay attention to, was... yes, you got it - Rome. Give yourself a biscuit. The story goes on a little bit more but we are going to stop here, because this is where the parallel between the story and my encounter with A ONE AND A TWO lies. You see, if I'm Twardowski and the film is the inn then... well, then the inn isn't called Rome, naturally, it's called New Wave Cinema.

Oh my.

A NOUS LA LIBERTE

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA.ORG

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1931 - France (Film Sonores Tobis)

DIRECTOR: René Clair
SCRIPT:  René Clair
PHOTOGRAPHY: Georges Périnal
MUSIC: Georges Auric

     My word, I was so ready to hate this film I should probably hang my head in shame and think about what I've (nearly) done. In my defence though I'd like to say that all I had to start with was the year, 'freedom' in the title and a glimpse of a review (I avoid reading about films before watching them so that I don't get my opinion influenced too much) from which my eye fished out words like 'left-wing', 'socialist' and 'propaganda'. My heart sank and was not far from knocking out a sizeable hole in the bottom of the Mariana Trench but then I have spotted another word that made me stop recoiling from the anticipated terror. A 'comedy' it said. And with that single word a tiny flicker lit up at the end of the tunnel. Thankfully it wasn't a train either.

PROJECT A, PART II ('A' GAI WAK JUP JAP)

SOURCE: IMDB.COM

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1987 - Hong Kong (Golden Way Films Ltd, Paragon Films Ltd)


DIRECTOR: Jackie Chan
SCRIPT: Jackie Chan, Edward Tang
PHOTOGRAPHY: Yiu-Tsou Cheung
MUSIC: Siu-Tin Lai

     As soon as you realise that this is a Jackie Chan film, you start asking yourself 'why?'. I mean, we all know Jackie, don't we? Affable, with a smile so child-friendly to make a puppy Labradors start calling their union reps to organise an industrial action, and with a tendency to shower us with characters, who, while lovable, are not always up there with the Daniel Day Lewises of the acting Pantheon. Also, the reader's vigilant eye will no doubt locate the all-worrying 'PART TWO' in the title prompting the inquisitive mind to ponder, what the hell happened to the PART ONE and was it just insignificant, or to put it simply, a pile of manure? The reader, indeed, would be totally excused to wonder, ponder, ask questions and doubt. I know I did. And the answers are...