Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Cultural Differences in Movie Appreciation


Without exactly meaning to, I've watched three Sammi Cheng movies in the last few months: Needing You, Love on a Diet and My Left Eye Sees Ghosts. [This last, I'm virtually sure, is going to be remade in Hollywood. I saw a logline for a recent Hwood script sale that was more than eerily reminiscent of MLESG. Not that there isn't an eye remake precedent, since Tom Cruise turned Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) into Vanilla Sky. Note: Eye and sky rhyme, in English at least (And yes, thank you, that was assonance)].

Back to point of post (POP). These are movies from Hong Kong. Sammi Cheng is, evidently, the go-to girl to play attractive whacked-out women who are, nonetheless, somewhat charming. And I do mean whacked.

I wonder, sometimes, whether I'm watching what is a Hong Kong equivalent of those wacky, fast-talking broads like Katherine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell--or to bring it forward (but not pay it forward) Barbara Streisand in the late 70s. Or even Lauren Graham in the Gilmore Girls, who speaks more quickly than all of them--and that's saying something.

Or is Ms. Cheng nothing like them, culturally? Clearly, I must watch more movies from Hong Kong.

No comments: