February 12, 2024
I1/6: 海口
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For Narrative Purposes, we are going to pretend that—in seeking distractions because there's a limit to how much typing I can do before I get tendonitis—the trip to the movies was today and not two days ago as, not only does it not matter when the trip to the movies was, my sense of time has blurred together into one mushy period of no one to see, nothing much being open, work, and people circumventing the fireworks ban.
I rarely go out of my way to see a specific movie in the theater. It's happened, but—whether the movie is a western import or a domestic one—I'm so often so thoroughly disappointed¹ that it's better to just show up with zero expectations and to buy a ticket to the next whatever-it-is that's showing.
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Sure, I'll still end up with a lot of crap movies, but, even if the WWII-era spy movie I watched with Chinese Boyfriend was excrecable—we were able to enjoy it by way of mutually pointing out to each other all the things that were wrong with it. And, if it weren't for this habit, I'd never have encountered my most favorite comedy movie in the existence of movies², nor gone to see Interstellar³ in theaters.
Which is how, walking⁴ home one evening from taking my laptop downtown with me, I ended up going to a screening of Article 20 by Zhang Yimou. Unsurprisingly for who the director is, it's scheduled to have a worldwide release at the end of this month, and—in the hopes that the English subtitles are as brilliant as the Chinese dialogue⁵—you should go see it!
The last seven or eight minutes of the movie are a contrived monologue (complete with standing ovation and dramatic music) from the main character on the role of law in a just society, and the role officers of the law have to play in upholding justice. Whenever I get around to seeing this movie again, I'll probably walk out for that bit; and I rather recommend that everyone else do too. However, considering the topic of the film—and assuming that the monologue isn't replacing something a little less heavy-handed—it was almost certainly a requirement of being greenlit to make it in the first place.
With the exception of trigger warnings for violent rape, attempted suicide, and a gruesome motorcycle accident, I won't spoil the plot by revealing what happens during the film. What I will say is that, if anyone could take the life and family troubles of a middle-aged member of the bench of a small city People's Procuratorate and his ultimate decision to drop all charges against a guy who stabbed someone 26 times and then, effectively, turn it into a comedy, it would be Zhang Yimou.
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¹ Looking at you Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
² A trashy romcom called Women Who Flirt in English, it was put out by one of better Chinese production companies with an apparently intended audience of bilingual members of the Chinese diaspora. At least, I can't think of any other way for the subtitles to both work with the Chinese and exist separate from it as a different, also trashy, comedy playing at the same time.
³ Which, like Zootopia, turned out to be so good, I went back with friends and saw it again .... and then went back with different friends and saw it again.
⁴ Since discovering that walking burns a whole lot more calories per unit of distance, I've been trying for 10,000 steps per day
⁵ The subs for the Wandering Earth just barely managed to achieve "technically accurate" and the dub killed everything good about it.
Today's ride: 10 km (6 miles)
Total: 516 km (320 miles)
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