Attitudes and Feelings Both Desirable and Sometimes Secretive

Trawling through Youtube I came across the most amazing Korean drama from a couple of years back. 태도 (Attitudes and Feelings Both Desirable and Sometimes Secretive) manages to bring emotions to the fore and touch us with heartwarming drama. Even though it clocks in at just over fifteen minutes, 태도 is an epic story of forbidden love, family ties and mysterious Canadians (English subtitles included):

Bobby Lee and Madtv should be commended for their interpretation of Korean dramas.

Copyright Infringement Wednesday (New Year's Eve Edition)

New Year's Eve, looking forward to sitting in front of the television, wanting something decent to snooze in front of; I perused my DVD collection looking for the very best film my shelves had to offer. The Dark Knight? Sweeney Todd? Truck? No, these were not good enough..... then I saw it, the film I had to see this afternoon:

T-D: Terminator Dog (터미네이터 독)

A dog that's a terminator? A sequel, a prequel, a spin-off from the James Cameron classic? Not exactly. A quick search on google revealed nothing except a link to the Brian Yuzna classic "Rottweiler".... A closer examination of the DVD and I saw that the original title was indeed included though not in the most obvious of ways:

Bottom right hand corner, just after the heart warming statement that T-D: Terminator Dog had been shown at the Ninth Puchon Fantastic Film Festival (Pifan), is the original title of the film "ROTTWEILER". Even on the Pifan website, the film is listed as "로트와일러 Rottweiler", so the distributors have deliberately altered the name of the movie after its original festival presentation.

But what of the cover picture? That shot of the robotic dog is not exactly what I would call a rottweiler (looks a little bit like a wolf to me) and is more than a little reminiscent of the dvd cover for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Has somebody been to the plagiarist school of cover art? The original image for "Rottweiler" is much less copyright infringing, so why not use that instead? Probably because it's not very good, but that is beside the point.

Well for 3,000 won, you get what you pay for... a crap Brian Yuzna film about a naked convict being chased by a cyborg dog with blue eyes.

I leave you now with the inspiring spanish language trailer for "Rottweiler" so that you too may share in the joy of the Terminator Dog:

Australia!

With time to kill and an urge to see something on the silver screen, I headed off with a few friends to Yongsan to see Baz Luhrmann's latest cinematic offering - Australia.

It was good, surprisingly good. I love his other films (in fact Romeo and Juliet is the only film I've ever seen twice in the cinema in the same week) and was worried that after his seven year absence from the screen he might not be able to pull off an almost three hour long romantic epic. Reviews from Australia and the U.S. had been mixed, but I had faith in Baz, if he could make a film about ballroom dancing exciting then there was every possibility that he could give us Gone with the Wind Aussie style. And he did...

Nicole Kidman is watchable, Hugh Jackman has turned into a 1940's heartthrob and David Wenham is perfect as the treacherous villain of the piece. The real stars though are Jack Thompson as Kipling Flynn the drunken accountant with a secret stash of "Poor Fella Rum" and Brandon Walters as Nullah the half white, half Aboriginal boy who Nicole learns to love. Walters also appears in Luhrmann's rather cheesey adverts for Australia (the country, not the film):

The film is not very subtle, fails to delve deeply into Australian history ( See Germaine Greer's fascinating attack in The Guardian and imdb goofs page for historical inaccuracies) and really overuses the word "crikey", but does entertain for the full 165 minutes, showing us amazing images of the Australian landscape as well as giving us the feeling that we are watching a 1940s Hollywood epic.

The use of "Somewhere over the Rainbow" throughout the film worked for me, but I can understand that some may find it overly sentimental or cliched. From the ukulele strumming and the snatches we hear in the film it seems as if Baz may have been influenced by the late great Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's version.

Overall a fun and entertaining epic, but nowhere near the dizzying heights of Strictly Ballroom, Romeo and Juliet or Moulin Rouge. It does make me want to visit Australia though.....

P.S. For extra reading check out Hitsville's analysis of the film. Jack Thompson is the Cowardly Lion! Here's to the Gentleman!