2009 Lost Memories?

[tim.iles at utoronto.ca]

To respond more to Mr. (?) Jaihutan's post, rather than that of Dr.
Nornes, this is indeed part of what may be a trend to "Hollywoodise" Asian
films--but that's really only part of a trend in world cinema to duplicate
international box-office success by appealing to (absolutely) the lowest
common denominator, ie., loud, expensive action sequences with plenty of
explosions. _2009 Lost Memories_ certainly isn't alone in this--_Shiri_,
another recent Korean action extravaganza with an effective plot centred
around a North Korean assassin and political intrigue in Seoul had a
budget bigger than necessary for 5 or 6 films (my opinion, of course!
^_^), and in Japan, one of the most "Hollywood"-styled films that springs
quickly to mind is _The Returner_, another time-travel action adventure
with plenty of gun fights and fairly silly CGI effects, and an alien
borrowed directly from _E.T._...

What bothered me about both of those two films was the _relentless_
duplication of all that goes into a Hollywood blockbuster, including the
impossibly obvious plot holes and concentration of resources on creating a
spectacle rather than--well, _anything else._ The obligatory romantic
sub-plot, the too-clearly drawn "evil menace," the too-clearly drawn good
guy, the emotional manipulation of killing off the good guy's partner--too
simple, without adding anything to the formula.

This reminds me of an extremely interesting article by Brian O'Leary in
_Criticism_ (V. 43 N. 2) entitled "Camera Movements in Hollywood's
Westering Genre: A Functional Semiotic Approach" in which he argues that
the very direction of pans points to a western hegemony in the creation of
cinema's visual grammar, based on the left/right writing system of
western languages... He argues that the dominance of this movement pattern
in international cinema indicates a true cultural colonisation of the
world by a very particular visual style.

This is _so_ unfortunate, because while Hollywood has been successful in
producing films that have spent/made a lot of money, that's not really
the only/best criterion for deciding which model of filmmaking to emulate.
Japanese films have a deep history of subtlety and, well, _elegance_ that
don't require huge budgets to achieve--this tradition isn't dead, just
overlooked by producers who want to cash in on international markets (a
thread a while ago discussed whether there are still "good" Japanese films
being made.)

The tradition of subtlety certainly does still exist--Iwai Shunji's film
_Shikijitsu_ was beautiful, moving, and--I'm quite sure--perfectly
innocent of even a single explosion... _2LDK_, despite is rather gruesome
final scene, was a tense, compelling little film with a budget sufficient
for only a few minutes' worth of _The Returner_ or _Shiri_, yet it made a
much more enduring impression on me than either of those two. _Anything_
by Kurosawa Kiyoshi will stand up more than well in comparison to the best
that Hollywood can produce, without emulating the worst that it is guilty
of.

I enjoy a good actuion flick as much as the next person (in summer when I
can relax a bit) but I just wish Asian action films would get away from
the tired premise that heroes (either positive or negative ones) can walk
through a hail of bullets without sustaining even a scratch...! Isn't
there any other way of approaching this genre than the Hollywood one?


Tim Iles
University of Victoria