Yesterday, I watched the third and last of what has turned out to be a North Asian trilogy of films about a grandson sent to the countryside to live with his grandpa or grandma.

I first watched Pushing Hands (1992) at a Singapore Film Festival many years ago before director LEE Ang became so very famous. The Taiwanese veteran actor, who played the role of the grandfather, passed away a couple of years ago and was honoured posthumously too.

Then some 10 years later came the 2002 Korean movie, The Way Home, which was one　 of my first few Korean movies. This time round, the city brat of a grandson was packed off to the countryside to live with his grandma. The old lady, who acted the role of the grandma, was so popular that hordes of fans and tourists descended upon her home and apparently she was forced to move out of the house that was home to her for decades !

 


Then last night, I watched the 2006 Japanese version, Gabai Granny. Japanese actress 吉行和子, who played the role of the grandma, attended the dialogue session following the screening of the movie as part of 2007 Japanese Film Festival in Singapore.

I enjoyed all three versions and interestingly, onl　y grandsons are sent off to the countryside to live with grandpa or grandma, and not grand daughters !

A cute advertisement to remind cinema goers to switch off their handphones.

Sounds of Cuba Come to Seoul 3 Upcoming Concerts Present Music From the Island Nation

By Han Eun-jung Staff Reporter “The Bar at Buena Vista” is a show that brings the unique heritage of Havana to life on stage. To soak up of the sounds and feel of Cuba, a visit to the Caribbean island would be ideal. But many of us have no choice but to rely on recordings and films, such as Wim Wenders’ 1999 documentary ``The Buena Vista Social Club,’’ which vividly evoked the Cuban scene. Luckily, in this fall, Cuba comes to Seoul with a multitude of performances, including a vocal concert and musical and instrumental collaborations. Starting off this celebration of Cuban culture will be the staging of the musical ``The Bar at Buena Vista'' at the Ewha Womans University Main Auditorium Oct. 1 through 3. Klazz Brothers & Cuba Percussion blend classical music with the beats of Cuban music. The musical is the perfect opportunity for those who have always wondered about the origins of the Buena Vista Social Club, the Havana-based music club that was at its height in the 1940s. By recreating the dress codes, the dance etiquette, the gossip, the show brings to life the feels and emotions of the unique musical heritage on stage. What makes ``The Bar at Buena Vista’’ special is its authenticity. In an encounter with Social Club bartender Lucas, who has served the likes of Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe and Ernest Hemingway during a four-year stay in Cuba, it dawned on the show’s director, Toby Gough, to ``not just to take the musicians of Buena Vista on tour, but to bring the Bar as well,’’ he said in a press release. The cast includes includes members of the Buena Vista Social Club with singer Reinaldo Creagh, guitarist, 80-year-old Jose ``Maracaibo’’ Castaneda. Dancer Eric Turro will introduce the hybrid mix of street and salon styles regularly danced in 1940s and ’50s Havana. Ticket prices start at 30,000 won running up to 70,000 won. For schedules and details, call (02) 598-8277. Havana-native Omara Portuonda, hailed as the ``grand old lady of Cuban music,'' had already been a star performer in Cuba. However, it was after her taking part in the documentary ``The Buena Vista Social Club'' did she move into the international spotlight. Now, as the last surviving member of the all-star group featured in the film and one of the few performers that experienced Havana at its prime, Portuonda comes to Seoul to sing live at the Yonsei University Auditorium Hall on Nov .11 at 7:30 p.m. Portuonda will be accompanied by a 13-member band as she goes over classics as well as songs off her critically acclaimed 2000 album `` The Buena Vista Club Presents Omara Portunonda’’ and 2004 solo effort ``Flor de Amor’’ with her famous richly textured voice that is capable of carrying all human emotions, from lust to tragedy. Tickets are 60,000 to 150,000. For more information, call (02) 563-7110 The Klazz Brothers, a group of classical musicians from Germany known for their ethnic blends, collaborates with Cuba Percussion bringing music from their latest recordings, ``Classic Meets Cuba’’ and ``Jazz Meets Cuba,’’ to the Sejong Center for the Performing Arts. The two albums were released in South Korea last October. The group is made up of pianist Tobias Forster, his brother and bass-player Kilian Forster and drummer Tim Hahn. In a press note introducing the upcoming performance, Tobias Forster said concertgoers should expect ``a combination of virtuosic, emotional, danceable and meditative music.’’ Alexis Herrera Estevez on the timbales and Elios Rodriguex Luis on the congas make up the Cuba Percussion, who will be providing the sensual beating and rhythms of Cuban music. Ticket prices run from 30,000 to 70,000 won. For more information, call (02) 598-8277 or log on to www.ticketlink.co.kr. ejh09@koreatimes.co.kr 09-12-2005 19:31 저는 금요일에 싱가포르의 Victoria극장에서 도 “The Bar at Buena Vista”를 볼게요.

Are you free this Saturday, 21st Aug ? The plan is to watch this movie at Cathay, Orchard Cineleisure. The screening schedule is not out yet but currently the show times are 7:20 and 9:50 pm. We could meet at 6 pm for dinner first.

제목 : 花とアリス - hana&alice(2004)
감독 : 岩井俊二 Iwai Shunji 이와이 슈운지
출연 : 鈴木杏 스즈키 안 , 蒼井優 아오이 유우, 郭智博 카쿠 토모히로
Website : http://hana-alice.com/
Trailer :  http://hana-alice.com/trailer.html
Review in Korean : http://leaz.net/bbs/zboard.php?id=bbs1&no=265

He loves me, he loves me not

By MARK SCHILLING

Hana to Alice

Rating: * * 1/2 (out of 5) Director: Shunji Iwai Running time: 135 minutes Language: Japanese Currently showing

[See Japan Times movie listings]

"Shunji Iwai has a shojo manga (girls' comic) sensibility," producer Takenori Sento once explained to me.

Beauty and grace - Anne Suzuki and Yu Aoi in "Hana to Alice"

That's not quite fair: Iwai's core audience -- young, hip urban women -- has probably long since outgrown "Ribbon." But, shojo mangalike, Iwai's films often deal with young love, with the female leads in "Love Letter" (1997) and "Shigatsu Monogatari" (1998) the focus of attention; the males, the passive objects of it. In "All About Lilly Chou Chou" (2002) the protagonist is a teenage boy obsessed with a mysterious female pop singer, but pathetically weak in protecting the girls he likes from sadistic classmates. In other words, a shojo-manga horror story, but one true to a lot of adolescent lives, inner or otherwise -- a factor that made the film a long-running hit.

Iwai's latest is "Hana to Alice (Hana & Alice)," which began life early last year as four short films on the Nestle company Web site as promos for Kit Kat candy bars. By the end of 2003 the films had attracted nearly 3 million hits and Iwai and his backers had decided to turn them into a feature film. No stats on how many hits were from shojo-manga readers.

The story is almost daringly cliched: two girls who are inseparable friends become involved with the same boy, one as the pursuer, the other as the pursued. One way to film it is the old-fashioned Japanese seishun eiga (youth film) way, with plenty of earnest speeches, yearning looks and agonized tears. Another is to take the Hollywood approach -- i.e., teenagers as horny, bumbling idiots.

Iwai opts for a third way, with plenty of light comic touches, but a heavy overlay of romanticism that borders on the portentous. He also ladles on pseudo-classical music, which he composed himself, over too many scenes and so loudly that the dialogue is nearly lost in the sonic soup.

The film's saving graces are its two lead actresses, who charm their way past Iwai's pretensions, and Iwai himself, who creates, in the climax, a visual tribute to youthful beauty, grace and courage that redeems much of what went before, including that tinkling score.

The two friends are Hana (Anne Suzuki) and Alice (Yu Aoi), junior-high-schoolers who may look the picture of carefree innocence, but are covertly boy-mad, especially for Miyamoto (Tomohiro Kaku), a moody, hot-looking senpai who rides their train. Hana falls harder, even taking surreptitious photos of the guy and signing up for a school rakugo (comic monologue) club of which he is one of two members.

Miyamoto, however, is oblivious to her existence until one day, on the way home after school, he accidentally cracks his head, loses consciousness and wakes to find Hana anxiously hovering over him. "Who are you?" he asks. "You lost your memory, senpai," she replies. "Don't you remember what you told me?" She then invents an entire relationship between them on the spot -- and he swallows her lies, almost.

Meanwhile, after being scouted in Harajuku by a talent agent, Alice is having adventures of her own. She schleps around to auditions for acting and modeling jobs, but can't break out of her shell and keeps losing to the competition. Hana, though, has one acting assignment she can handle -- as an accomplice in her plot to win the still-skeptical Miyamoto. Alice goes along, but finds that -- horror of horrors -- Miyamoto likes her better. Even worse, she kind of likes him. A wonderful friendship is about to hit a rough patch.

As Hana and Alice, Anne Suzuki and Yu Aoi begin the film bubbly, natural and completely in sync, as though they were not on a film shoot but a romp with a best bud. Working with cameraman Noboru Shinoda, Iwai doesn't shape their performances so much as capture them on the fly, in sequences that combine the candidness of a home video with the visual sophistication of a sleekly edited music clip.

As the story progresses, their characters emerge as distinct personalities. Suzuki's Hana is more comically needy and inept, but with a vibrancy and quickly ripening looks that recall the young Kate Winslett. Aoi's Alice is harder to read. Burdened by divorced parents who are wildly different types -- neglectful bohemian Mom (Shoko Aida) and straight-arrow, mostly absent salaryman Dad (Hiroshi Abe), she has withdrawn into the little world she and Hana have created. But when that world is threatened, we see that she is more than Hana's match at hatching stratagems -- and getting what she wants.

By contrast, Kaku's Miyamoto is little more than a drab, sullen Ken doll -- not worthy of all the turbulent emotions the girls invest in him. But then guys in this sort of movie seldom are.

A less mannered and self-involved director than Iwai would have given more of the movie to his two stars, instead of forever drawing attention to his own stylistics. To his credit, Iwai knows how to showcase their individual talents -- Suzuki's for comedy, Aoi's for dance -- at precisely the right moments. But please, next time, a lighter hand on the volume control.

The Japan Times: March 24, 2004