Cool Movies I Watched Over the Weekend

     This weekend there was a little something for everyone.

1. Shower

      Some foreign films, particularly French films (go figure), do not translate well in American culture.  No pun intended.  But this Chinese film was warmer and funnier than I ever expected.  It's a story about a young, successful business man named Da Ming, who returns home to his small northern Chinese village suspecting that his father, the owner of a bathhouse, has passed away.  His father, in fact, is still alive and running his prized bathhouse as smoothly as ever, with the help of his other son and Da Ming's mentally handicapped brother, Er Ming.  Da Ming's impatience and urgency to catch the quickest flight back home is overshadowed by his father's sudden health decline, and the risk of losing the bathhouse to an ever-expansive industrial age, which would rather see neon signs and a shopping mall than half-naked Chinese men fighting crickets and lounging in steaming bath pools.  Nevertheless, Da Ming stays to help his family.  As cliche as this "I'm coming home and it's going to be tense" storyline can be at times (movies like Garden State and Elizabethtown come to mind), it has a wittiness and more pure simplicity about it, because it shows one small family exactly how it is - imperfect and rash to one another at times, but also caring, kind, and, whether they will admit it or not, close.  The relationship that Da Ming develops with his handicapped younger brother is well paced, natural, and aided with some superb acting and writing talents. 

2. The Host

     
     Ok, so I kind of lied.  I guess there's not as much diversity this weekend in my movie viewage as I previously stated.  Man, last time it was a bunch of Mormon films, and now it's foreign Asian films.  I just can't catch a break.  It's not like I'm doing this on purpose, people.
    The Host is a South Korean horror/monster flick that should not be overlooked.  After the government and other vaguely implied officials dump a bunch of chemical toxins into the Han River, BIG SHOCKER, a large, mutated, amphibious creature is discovered to be dwelling there ten years later. It leaps ashore one sunny afternoon and kills a bunch of picnickers, then dives back into the water with a small girl named Hyun-Seo.  Her family is devastated, until they receive a call from her somewhere in the sewer system, proving she is still alive.   It's now up to her pathetic and otherwise unmotivated father Gang-Du, her grandfather, and her uncle and archery-champion aunt to find where the monster has stowed away their youngest family member - and to bring every ounce of revenge they have.
    This movie is actually more of a black comedy than anything.  It's a more unique type of horror film that would appeal to any horror fan.  The humor is subtle, and finds its epitome in the anti-hero Gang-Du, who finds time to nap and be clumsy even in midst of running from the Korean CDC in the hopes of finding his little girl alive.  The monster itself is slightly cheap-looking in terms of CGI, which I believe was on purpose.  The writers, producers, and director didn't want you to pay the most attention to the special effects that made up this terrifying monster; they instead point the audience to focus on the lives this monster has disrupted, and the fate of all involved in the end.

(img source=dianying.com / beyondhollywood.com)