| ஒத்திசைவு | प्रत्याह्वय | resonance |

Oh NO!

Many moons (not your Sun Myung Moons, silly) have passed by, since I saw this rather confusing film – but my motto in life is:

let the freakin‘ world beget, what I begat.

grrrr…

… I recollect with abject terror, the fact that, very many moons ago, actually in 1989 or so, Mahadevan and I had gone to  a Korean avant garde film festival with all kinds of expectations and then had to literally RUN away from the Auditorium for our dear lives… Oh the horror, the horror…

But it seems to me that, I hardly learn any lesson from all my misdeeds, in my life. :-(

So,  I saw an yet another mater-copulating Korean film. And, here goes my rabid viewpoint…

Sung-su Kim – ‘Musa’ The Warrior (2001)

This Korean (south) film  was released in 2001, was supposedly received well in ‘festival’ circuits (but then, apparently never saw a theatrical release, good riddance too!) and has a few actors who had also acted in kitsch films of the likes of  ‘Crouching tiger, Hidden dragon’ and ‘Memoires of a Geisha.’  (my opinion of Crouching etc kind of flicks – is that, they are majorly silly ones with a lot of pretensions)… And, in spite of that… it was incredible that…

… this film was highly recommended by one of my friends (and, dammit, he is NOT my friend ANYMORE) and I was actually craving to watch it. My pal said that it was the best film (after ‘shichinin no samurai‘) to depict an yet another story of a band of selfless kinda warriors taking on something that is more than impossible kind of goal etc… and then, delivering on it!

So.

No, no – of course, one cannot actually reduce the kaleidoscopic Seven Samurai of that impossible Kurosawa Akira into a pithy sentence; but still, I really really regret the fact that my pal should have known better.

Musa is unfortunately full of utter rubbish like an average Tamil Pilim (mind you,am not talking about those few good films that we do actually have, thank GAWD for small mercies):

• cliches,
• melodramatic situations,
• love triangles,
• a hero who can take on a whole army of MONGOLS!
• & one too many beheadings and gore

… but, thankfully, there were no ‘suddenly breaking into’ songs and dances around the nearest available trees and farthest available snowclad mountains. Thank GAWD,  yet again!

Sung-su Kim – the Director of: The Where Rear? (his head is intact, I just checked)

It was as if, Sung-su Kim, the director–  had this periodical conversation while shooting (or may be beheading) the film, such as this:

SK: the plot is not thickening enough, do something.

His minion (=Assistant Director): Okay sir, what about another beheading? May be some rice flour can me tossed in?

SK: No, dammit, don’t you try to rice to the occasion! But asshole, haven’t some 20 odd normal & rather leisurely  beheadings  happened already? And we have just barely canned 5% of the budgeted raw film…  And we have to reserve more beheadings for the climactic scenes which start from the second minute of the film till the end?? Now, where is  that darn Camera man?

HM: Sir, he has gone to collect the last beheaded head dummy that went off that cliff, see?

SK: On second thoughts, may be we should have a few more beheadings, with slow movement and with blood arching out of the neck – and these spouts of blood should wet the already fallen heads… And the red blood laden Sword Blades should glisten in the Sunlight and at a distance, we pan out and we shall show the Princess with an non-expressive, deadpan face as  usual…

HM: (excitedly) Sir, what a fantastic ‘Director’s Touch’ will that  be! The audience will lap it all up. May be we would get an Oscar for Goreography, if that category exists…

SK: Aw, we do not care much for Oscars! Don’t you know that, dummy? We are the Arthouse cinema makers, the creators of a futuristic cinematic order… now,  where is that goddam Archer? How many times have we told him to hold the cross bow in front of him and not at his back? What the hell  Does he think – he thinks he is that famous Rajinikanth or what?

HM: Sorry sir, he must have seen that Oscar wannabe – Ezhaam Arivu and must have gotten inspired by that Other Actor from Tamil films. Why sir, that actor is also called Surya – and Surya means SUN sir! Your very name sir! I know my Sanskrit sir!!

SK: Enough of that Tamil drivel; I am S U N and that is sun and not san, got it? Actually my name is Kim.  And don’t you dare compare me with random detritus.  grrr

HM: Okay sir, that Archer business. So, we will have the archer shoot some fearsome Mongols, right through their throats or what?

SK: May be the Mongol victims can pull out the arrows that have pierced them, from the stomach or chest, bringing out with it, a mess of intestinal gloop or a pulsating heart as the case may be?

HM: Roger. Um. Will explore. In that case, we would need a lorry load of Tomato Ketchup sir.

SK: That’s fine. For realistic effects, get some Chilli-Chilli Ketchup – that will make the actors really cry out in agony… While on topic, may be, the princess can hack someone to pieces too.

HM: But Ziyi Zhang says, she is not a hacker. Apparently she has never done any hacking so far, computers or no computers.

SK: Okay then, may be she can accidentally stab someone while trying to protect a peasant? Ensure that while she is taking out her princessly knife, blood gushes out like a fountain and royally  wets the earth.

HM: Yes sir.

SK: Also add the love tetrahedron angles for the camera shots, should we take a crane shot too? Where are our cranes when we need them?  &$ #@ ^ %

HM: They have migrated to the south of the Himalayas sir!

SK: Then, behead those cranes. grrr

HM: Sorry, erm, but what about the audience, reviewers’ reactions??

SK: Behead ’em too.

…To give credit where it is  not due – the cinematography of Musa is stunning – not at all like many syrupy, maudlin and/or fleshy movies from Korea that do the circuits in film festivals (that I have seen, but there should be some exceptions too, oh the hope).

Probably it is worth watching once and spending a whopping  2.5 hours of our bloody lives on this – from the point of view of visuals (non beheading ones, that is); but, I think a suitable documentary would have been sufficient – that too could have delivered the heads, oops, goods in say, 15 minutes.

… Oh! These Korean flicks…

Give me my Rajinikanth starrer ANYDAY! Yeah!