Plugged in and ready to fall

The girl at Oxford Comics really knows her Asian cinema. When I rented Old Boy (An incredible revenge film by a director best described as the Korean, establishment version of Quentin Tarentino), she struck up a conversation about the House of Flying Daggers, and Hero. I’d rented the House of Flying Daggers one week earlier, and enjoyed it so much I nearly soiled my pants. The fight scenes were beyond beautiful. Zhang Ziyi has this great way of dispatching an entire roomful of bad guys while looking like she couldn’t be more bored. The balletic, intricately choreographed kung fu of HOD was in stark contrast to the more brutal, realistic throw downs in Old Boy. Jesus, what a brilliant, hard-hitting movie. The scene that cemented my love for Chan Wok Park (the director) was the one where Oh Desu makes his way through a hallway filled with scary, knife-wielding thugs. The thing that makes it so remarkable is the fact that it was all done in one take. No cutaways at all- just one long tracking shot of Oh Desu moving down this narrow hallway, handing out beatings like they were going out of style.