It was pretty cool being back in line, the time passed surprisingly fast. You know how Fantasia is sponsored by Playstation and all, well when the first Sony official walks by the line he will probably have tears in his eyes. Why you ask, simple... Gameboy Advance. A lot of people had these things and they were all hooked together for multiplayer. I played a bit of F-Zero but stopped after I realised I sucked beyond hope.

By 11am the line has started to become noticably long, it was time to call Fee Hung (Janick). Good thing people carry cell phones with them, I called him up at work, and of course to get him to hurry here I exagerated the situation but just a little. My trick worked and Fee Hung was on his way. A little longer and we were buying our passes, since we were at it we got tickets to all the movies for the next 3 days. I really feel bad for the ticket sellers at the imperial, this is seriously not joke the amount of confussion and stress involved in their job.

Before we left we took a look around and were just surprised to see so many people waiting in line like this. Last year there was maybe 20 people at most in line, it must be Final Fantasy which attracted all these people. Here are a couple pictures of Daniel, for those who dont know who he is, he is basically one of the technicians who sets up various things at the fest. For some reason he has gotten superstar status over the years, he is very much related to the fest. Hell sometimes people cheer more for that guy than they do for special guests.

July 10th - [Day 1]

Opening Night + Final Fantasy

(If you saw a flash at the beginning of the movie this was it)

Well all in all day 1 was pretty cool as I had a nice time, be sure to catch us tommorow for the Jet Li extraganza (sp?) with Once Upon a time in China 1 and Swordsman II.

July 11th - [Day 2]

Rain, Sushi and Kung Fu...

[6:15pm] You wont believe what just happened, here I was standing in line minding my own business and a reporter comes up to me to ask a few questions. It seems they want to know a little more about hardcore fans, now do I seem hardcore to you? To be honest I did not even notice the time go by, there is so much going on here today its unbelievable. Once Upon a Time in China is starting soon, I will let you know if it was good.

[9:28pm] OUATIC : I have seen Once Upon a Time in China many times before but this is the first time I had seen it on the big screen. They had a new remastered version of the print, and the quality really showed. This movie was beautiful, it almost brought tears to my eyes. You could tell that the crowd really enjoyed it too, they cheered for every incredible move shown on screen. The Fantasia spirit was really alive during this movie, this is what its all about, a cool movie a cool crowd. I am really happy they decided to play some classic Kung Fu this year. Next up we have Swordsman II.

[11:59pm] Swordsman II : Just before the movie started they gave away a prize, a stack of 10 CDs from Ninja tunes, I wonder what other prizes they will have this year. It was a long time since I have seen swordsman II, the print was pretty scratched up but was decent still. The subtitles were really good so I finally got to fully understand the story. This was a Fantasy Kung Fu movie with a lot of cheesy special affects. By the looks of it the crowd enjoyed it, they found the movie really funny, well its hard not to. Fee Hung (Janick) also made a new friend during this movie. The fellow who was sitting in front of us had a dog with him, during the movie the dog decided to visit Janick and become his friend. I guess its only at fantasia where you can watch a weird kung fu movie with a dog sleeping by your feet.

Well thats it for this evening, come back and see us tommorow. We are going to be seeing the anime Escaflowne and the South Korean movie Die Bad

July 12th - [Day 3]

Rain Bad

[4:45pm] Its raining, there's a lot of traffic and I am back in line. I am feeling somewhat annoyed, might be the rain well at least I am not standing in it. So today we have an anime called Escaflowne followed by Die Bad, sounds like an interesting line up. It turns out yesterdays interview made the paper, Dominic ran off to get a copy but got the wrong paper, I mentioned the wrong name yesterday, oops. Things are pretty quiet today, just a little chatting about the some movies. Lets go check out escaflowne.

[9:15pm] Escaflowne : That was a pretty cool movie, I enjoy just about any anime. The story was nice in this one and they had this really cool song too, would be cool to find in on MP3. Mail us if you have it. It seems the movie is the short version of the a 13 hours series. I am sure the series would be quite interesting as the story would develop much more indept.

[11:30pm] Die Bad was bad, well I personally did not like it. From the description it sounded something along the lines of another Korean movie called Beat which I really enjoyed. What I did not like about Die Bad was that the movie was kinda incoherent and thus difficult to follow. The movie was seperated in 3 chapters, each chapter being filmed differently. Just the opening of the movie was shot in a strange way jumping between the event and someone talking of the event, true it makes for an innovative style of story telling but it got me dizzy fast. There are some good points to this movie but overall I did not enjoy it, on the other hand there were those in our group that really liked the movie. So like I always say it comes down to personal taste.

Here is the funny part about the movie, they had the movie on videocassette. Yes I am serious and two video cassettes at that, so they had to swamp mid film. Thus the quality was a little... well bad. There is more to it, the movie was full screen, to the experienced movie watcher full screen movies are just painful. Well so much for this movie, tommorow is friday and we have an insane lineup starting with Once upon a time in china 2 then jumping to horror with St-John's Wort, Ripper and finishing off with Cannibal Holocaust. So come and join us for this evening of madness, oh and if you see us in line please say hi.

July 13th - [Day 4]

Friday the 13th, how frightening...

[2:26pm] Since its friday the 13th something like really bad could happen. If there are no more entries after this one that means the KFC crew got killed by zombies or more approprietely... eaten by Cannibals. I will let you know if we survive.

[4:50pm] Took a hell of a long time to get to the Imperial, some idiot ramed his car into a post and another idiot killed himself in the subway. Looks like friday the 13th is taking affect, good thing I had some friends in line so I can get a decent place. We are about to go in to see Once Upon a Time in China II, this should be good and I havent seen it yet either so extra bonus

[4:50pm] OUATIC2 : That was great, another incredible movie with Jet Li and Donnie Yen played a great villain. The fight between Donnie Yen and Jet Li was simply incredible. Its too bad that Yuen Biao was not playing the role of Foon like he did in the first movie. Next up we have Otogiriso (St-John's Wort), a japanese horror movie that has videogame elements and his supposedly shot on video camera kinda like Blair Witch. Its funny to see the crowd completely change from the previous movie to the next, I guess kung fu fans aren't keen for a bizarre Japanese movie. Lets see if its good.

(Daniel is giving out some prizes before the movie)

[9:39pm] St-John's Wort : Interesting but not what we expected, there were a lot of interesting things in the movie like the odd color various things were shot in or the design of the settings but the movie fell short when it came to the story. It started off interesting but there was no high tension or fear factor during the movie. I guess this movie wont make our best picks list but I am still happy I saw it because of the visual element. Next up with have Ripper, some teen screamer flic, we arent even sure what its about we just decided to check it out for the hell of it.

[9:39pm] Ripper : That movie was soooo cliché, in fact they had just about every cliché in the book. General thought of the movie was lame but luckily we poked some fun at the movie and that made it interesting. Judging from the laughter from certain corners in the audience we were not the only ones. I must share a little secret, I love bad movie, that is the ones you can laugh at. The great thing about watching those kind of movie at fantasia everyone has fun with it. I heard a lot of hilarious comments during this movie, thanks to the crowd. On a more chilling note, it seems (*rumor*) that there might have been some people from that movie here, director or producer or something. If that actually was the case they probably ran home crying after the movie as no one even took it seriously. One last detail I just have to mention Ripper had one of worst dialogs we've ever seen, bad as in lame. Alright no more torture about Ripper, next up we have Cannibal Holocaust and we are going to be like a group of 15 to check this one out. Its going to be real fun.

(The audience after Ripper, they are in shock or is that denial)

[2:40am] Drum Buddy : Before I talk about Cannibal we must mention the special time before the movie. As most of you might know tonights original presentation was a live show called Quintron but it seems the Quintron crew could not make it. So they replaced the line up with Cannibal Holocaust but they still played the short movie that went along with the show. The Drum Buddy infomercial 45 minutes long, the first few minutes was alright but after that the realisation that this thing was for real and it was not going end sank in. The crowd was passive at first but as the informercial continued more and more angry things were yelled such as : "Change the channel, Burn it, You Suck, Cannibal.... " and many others that would not be acceptable for our rated G content. About maybe 40 minutes into the infomercial they decided to shut it off, probably because at this point everyone was screaming random nonesense. I guess they wanted to avoid a riot, Quintron should be happy he did not come to perform his live show because I am sure the crowd would have pelted him with garbage. I had some time to think about the events of the Drum Buddy and I think it was really a cruel joke on the part of the Fantasia organizers. If I was one of the organizers and I put on a tape like that I would probably laughing my ass off in the lobby imagining the reaction of the crowd. Just my two cents, anyways its all good fun. Oh and if you want to learn more about the Drum Buddy go to www.drumbuddy.com or there to watch the intro in RealPlayer but be warned you might have quite a shock watching it! Only 999.99$, visa or master card accepted.

(Trust me its a lot worse than it looks here)

Cannibal Holocaust : As the screen went dark and Cannibal Holocaust started the crowd went mad, in a good way this time. I expected this movie to be more cheesy funny but it was pretty cool, if there were any animals activist in the theater they would have gone insane. A lot of the gore in this movie is 100% real, they gut a giant turtle just for the camera. A dose of real gore for all the gore fans out there. For a cheesy cannibal flic this was very enjoyable, I am glad I checked it out. That sums up our friday the 13th coverage, it was an exciting and eventful night at Fantasia to say the least.

(Feed Quintron to the Cannibals)

Overall extremely enjoyable evening, tommorow we will be back for Double Tap, Foul King and Ghost World, after that we are heading heading to china town for some late night dinning Triad style. Join us at Guang Zhao.

(An end to a wonderful fantasia evening)

July 14th [Day 5]

Post Drum Buddy Trauma

[4:12pm] Here I am back in line for Double Tap, the only Hong Kong movie playing this year that I have not previously seen yet. It seems last nights Drum Buddy eXperience has left a lasting affect on all of us, as we shared the story to all those that could not make it. It looks like the Drum Buddy night will go down as the infamous night of this years fest. They must put Drum Buddy on one more time, what I would not give to see a fresh crowds reaction to that informertial. I even contacted the Drum Buddy people and asked about getting myself a copy of their Infomercial. Double Tap is going to start soon, lets see if this one is any good.

(yes more pictures of people outside before the movie)

[7:02pm] Double Tap was a pretty ordinary movie, I am happy I saw it but I am even happier I did not purchase the DVD when it was first released. Next up we have Foul King, a Korean comedy about wrestling. Having seen the movie previously I expect this movie to be a real crowd pleaser.

(Double Tap)

[9:18pm] Foul King : Wow that was pretty cool, this movie is great on the big screen not to mention the fact that the crowd absolutely loved it. From what everyone said so far it sounds like Foul King is the best movie presented at the festival so far. The next movie is Ghost World and there is a pretty big chuck of the theater reseved for guests, looks like an important screening. I did not look to much into this movie, I only have a vague idea but it sounded interesting.

(The Foul King + Chupa Bike [no relation])

[11:45pm] Ghost World : was very cool, I enjoyed it alot. It was a slice of life of these two teen girls like a friend of mine explained to me, it was full of all the weird things that could only happen in real life. The movie was both simple yet full of various theme between the line. All very conceptual, the kinda movie you could probably take apart digging up all the ideas and thoughts. Then again you can just sit back and enjoy it. Next up with have Guang Zhou, the late night chinese restaurant event. Now its just a matter of finding everyone and making sure they find the place. There are a lot of people in line also, looks like Cannibal Holocaust is sold out. I even wonder if there is enough place for everyone, its a really long line.

(Ghost World + Mitch giving away free stuff)

[12:21am] Guang Zhou : Looks like I get stuck writting up the order, each time I go to these places its always me who has to write down the order. The fun thing with a large group is ordering many many dishes, also with this many dishes you get to try some new things. After we made our order we drank tea and talked about various movie related topics and possibly including the Drum Buddy. Soon as the food arrived we digged in, lots of good stuff but I have only one regret I did not have any chow mein, I love that stuff alot but I eat it often enough as is. After the meal we chilled and drank tea and around 2:30 am we decided to leave. Well that was a great evening, one of us mentioned next time we go for Sushi, I made sure to add " and get drunk on sake ".

(Heading to Guang Zhou, look at all the people for waiting Cannibal Holocaust)

Be sure to catch us tommorow evening as we are back for Wu Yen and Chasing Sleep.

July 15th [Day 6]

Sleep?!?

[6:33pm] Damn I am really late today but thanks to friends in line and a friend inside with a guest pass, my place was safe. Its really a group effort to get good places, tommorow its my turn to go early and wait in line. The movie we are about the see is called Wu Yen, its the latest comedy from Johnny To and is basically shot to resemble a cantonese opera. Chinese Comedies are tricky because of the use of language and cultural context but in Wu Yen they deal with themes of love and jealousy, things that anyone can relate to. I found Wu Yen to be one of the most understandable Chinese Comedies. I am just curious to see how the audience reacts to it.

(long lines for todays movies)

(Santo watches over the line to make sure no one cuts in)

[9:10pm] Wu Yen : It seems like a lot of people enjoyed this movie but there were those that were not crazy about this movie. I enjoyed seeing this movie again, especially on the large screen. A second time around you catch all the little details that you missed the first time, truly this movie has an enjoyable tale. Also it leaves me wondering about the real cantonese opera, it is something I would like to experience one day. The next movie we are watching is called Chasing Sleep.

(Free Stuff(tm) from Julien)

[11:35pm] Chasing Sleep : The first thing that came to mind when I originally saw this title in the festival guide was that this movie would make me miss some much needed sleep. My prediction was so very true, I personally could not stand this movie nor could Fee Hung. It was about some guy with a whole lotta issues slowly going out of his mind, the pace of the movie was slower than sludge. On the other hand there were quite a few people that did enjoy this movie, so who knows. The director was also present for the Q/A after the movie, he seemed a little strange. His answers were vague to a lot of questions well mostly those about certain meanings in his film, he did not have any solid answers. Its either he did not care or was mad that the audience did not adore his movie, who knows. Well thats it for us, its time to start chasing some much needed sleep.

(Chasing Sleep + QA with Micheal Walker)

 

To Continue the Journal:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3