Last Thursday I decided that enough was enough, and instead of spending my time looking for good Chinese/Japanese movies, I should spend some time watching the movies I already have. Thus started the Festival, and today, a week later, it’s still going strong. A movie per day, two per day on weekends, even with all the work that’s been piling up at the office. Immensely satisfying, trust me.

Demon City Shinjuku came first – a thoroughly popcorn movie, as I had already said.

Ringu next. Unfortunate soul as I was, I had already seen the English version – the remake, I mean, so this one was interesting on an academic level. As in, i found myself observing how Hideo Nakata’s vision differed from Gus van Sant’s product, how much it was Americanised, rather than watching the film for it’s content. The “horror” aspect in Ringu is very subtle – minimal reliance on traditional motifs like the background music ( the Hollywoodish tendency of the music going krakatoa on your eardrums whenever something “scary” happens does not happen here), very low blood-gore content, and the characters themselves possessing a degree of paranormal abilities, which I think van Sant cut out because it was too Unamerican. But of course, you need a cute kid widening their eyes and making ghostly predictions in Hollywood movies, especially after The Sixth Sense, so even the kid’s role was bumped up in the remake.

If I want you to jump out of your seats, I would recommend the English version. If you want to be gently mesmerised into submission, watch Ringu.

Then there was Fist of Legend and Iron Monkey, two movies I had watched earlier, but which I wanted to watch again, so I did. Enough wire-fu and adrenaline to last a week.

Bastard and Akira on Sunday, and two episodes of Cowboy Bebop. Akira was glorious, Otomo-san’s artwork and direction AND story alternately weird, creepy and goosepimply. The movie begins in silence, with a shot of Tokyo, 1988. ( The anime was made between 1984 and 1988 ) Then at the centre of the skyline, a small ball of light rises, expands and lights up the screen. You realise Tokyo is being razed to the ground, and the ball of light is an explosion of some kind, and by the time your fingers move to the volume control button ( obviously you would think that an explosion should have some kind of sound), the screen changes to a shot of Nu-Tokyo, circa 2030.

Trivia: Akira was first published in 1982, black-and-white manga format in Young magazine, created, written and drawn by Katsuhiro Otomo. Two years later, Otomo-san began production of the anime, and it was completed in 1988, and the comicbook was then continued to its conclusion . So the film tries to compress some 1400 pages of comicbook material, a part of which hadn’t even been committed to paper, to a two hour narrative. Amazing movie, and an amazing story. The comic was reprinted by Marvel’s Epic line in 1988 ( 38 issues/full colour) and recently, Dark Horse Comics has brought out the complete series, in black and white, spanning 6 300-page volumes.

Bastard, on the other hand, is a TV series which was never completed after six episodes. But those six episodes are hilarious!! The “bastard” in question is a wizard named Dark Schneider, a cackling windbag with a tendency to lose his clothes after every paranormal encounter, who has been summoned to the world after fifteen years of captivity inside a small boy’s psyche. He has been brought back to save the world from the Four Lords of Havoc, but nobody thought about the fact that Dark Schneider himself would want to rule the world instead of saving it. Hilarious references to eighties heavy metal bands, and neat-o action sequences. This one rocks!!!

Then yesterday I discovered this neat VCD of a movie called Master of The Flying Guillotine, part of the influences from which Kill Bill was made ( The “flying guillotine” happens to be the same contraption Gogo Yubari used on the Bride) The VCD was priced at 55 rupees, hallelujah. But then I watched the movie, and then realised just why it was priced so low.

You see, the movie was a Chinese one. Dubbed into English, says the vcd cover. Obviously, very badly dubbed. The fun starts when you are about twenty minutes into the movie. Situation: Father talking to Kungfu conscious daughter.

Father: Daughter. I am scared for you. The tournament is dangerous, there are a lot of evil men. ( voice goes up a register) Ling ming FON chou khu. Hayi kabo shiro NAKHIN toh. * (voice drops again) Do you want to fight them?

Daughter: Father, you are too scared for me. (voice changes) LEI lei hang shi phoo. Lei lei hang SHING?

Well, the crux of what I am trying to point out, with deliberate mutilation of a language alien to me (apologies to Chinese people dropping by. I am just trying to be funny, folks. Feel free to murder Hindi anyday, if that’s a consolation ), is that the dubbing in the VCD is weird. It skips to Chinese with subtitles for ten minutes, then comes back ( with different voices) in English without subtitles. Sometimes you can see a volume bar coming up and mysteriously adjusting itself.

None of this takes away the fact that the movie is awesome, and the fight sequences, jerky camera movements, the music – everything’s a representation of an undiluted Chinese action movie.

Next on the agenda: Italian Spaghetti-Western festival. I happen to have discovered VCDs of, among others, Death Rides A Horse, and countless other 70’s Western movies. And of course, rewatching the Sergio Leone collection wouldn’t be a bad idea either.