The animation and computer effects seem very out of place in the serious setting of a Wu Xia movie, and often made people laugh. At first I thought it was just a silly movie like a Kung Pow or one of the Scary Movie films, but the post-modern references to other films and the animated and exaggerated effects don't seem to be there solely to make the audience laugh or to divert from the established style. It seemed like the beginning was packed full of references and visual effects that made me giggle, but there wasn't much to hold my attention to the plot. As the story went on, I became more interested in the story itself through the plot and the kung fu instead of the more superficial (in my opinion) aspects of the beginning. I think this might be to purposely defy our expectations. As moviegoers who would have seen this style of film many times before, we would have a very specific idea of what to expect from this film. Incorporating these new elements into this film challenged what we knew, and made us more open to whatever the filmmakers had for us.
This idea sort of hit me when Professor McRae was explaining the importance of being relaxed in order to be good at martial arts. Similarly, we as an audience had to loosen up and not be so rigid in our expectations for this film. I haven't seen too many Asian martial arts films, so I can't say how original the plot and ending are, but the point is that it had my undivided attention because the movie began by giving me many things to focus on visually then gradually became more plot-focused and the animation and references fell into the background, just serving to further the plot while the characters and the action take over the movie, once we know who is doing what and why.
I think this was a great technique, because there was a reason behind it. Most of the time post-modernism confuses me because there seems to be no reason for it, but here there seems to be some kind of logic behind all the references and such--instead of using references for the sake of making references, here it seemed more like making references to other movies to take the audience out of their preconceived ideas about what the movie will/should be like.
Oooh, I like this. I like that the movie got your attention because of its silliness with a somewhat serious direction. I also like your comparison of martial arts relaxation and relaxing your expectations. That makes a whole lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteI like how you talk about the physical part of watching films and how a relaxed state for you while watching this film allowed you to perceive it differently. I'm not sure if I follow your comment about the references having more logic in this film than other postmodern films we have watched in class. The references were fun to watch but, for me at least, they didn't answer any questions or share wisdom on martial arts or anything really. There wasn't a "bigger picture" from references so it had a similar effect to other films such as Mulholland Drive.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I've seen this film a few times before so I already knew the plot behind the film. I think because of that, I saw a lot more of the references that the film makes to others. I think it's interesting that you kinda of saw it backwards to that, not really focusing on the references but more on the plot. It's wierd the way this film plays out cause it changes alot based on how you look at it.
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