(yet another picture of the line)

[9:15pm] Gojoe : We were sitting in the middle row for this movie, our friend Etienne from Clandestin saved us some places, I guess he got my telepatic message to save some places for us. It was a pretty decent place to watch the movie but something really weird happened, sometime during the movie a monk was throwing some sacred rice or something and then this bag of popcorn falls from the 2nd floor and hit the guy in front of us on the head. If thats not perfect unexpected timing I dont know what is. The sad about Gojoe is that this whole popcorn incident was just about the most exciting thing about the movie. This is what I expected so I am not really dissapointed. I decided to stay for Denti which I was not planning to, if its no good I will just go home.

(Free Ninja Tunes stuff, pick me Daniel)

[11:44pm] Denti : During the beginning of the movie it seemed boring but after the movie had ended I wanted to see it again. Its not that Denti was an incredible movie, it was pretty ordinary but after watching it all the underlying concepts and themes in the movie come together and I wish that I would have paid attention to the details in the beginning. The ending of the movie was especially good, how everything was tied together and to think I almost did not go see this movie. Its usually the movie that you least expect turn out to be the most interesting. I also really liked the sound track to this movie, I would like to aquire it if anyone knows it or has it.. Please mail me. Tommorow we have 24 hours in London an action comedy fromthe UK.

July 17th - [Day 8]

So much for S+M...

(Free Stuff + the director of 24 Hours in London)

July 18th - [Day 9]

Insert generic title here...

(KFC Cinema flyers)

[7:10pm] Akira was pretty cool, I knew very little about the storyline so nothing was ruined for me. The quality of the print was very good and the dubbing was good aswell. I personally dont like dubbed movie but animes are the exception. I find dubbing is not so bad when it comes to an anime as there is no real lipsync problems. Also always having to read subtitles gets tiring, either you loose a bit of the dialog or your pay less attention to the scenes. On the other hand Fee Hung would not agree, he likes his Animes with subtitles. Its funny when we are watching an Anime on DVD as I would like the dubbed track and wants the subbed. Next up is Bhopal Express

[9:15pm] Bhopal Express was an interesting movie, it was based on what was called the worst industrial accident ever. The chemical accident resulted in the death of over 10,000 innocent people. The movie focus on one ordinary man living an ordinary life and how he deals with the whole incident. Starting from a simple story things become graphic and real as the people die from and invisible enemy. The movie truly stirs up emotions about the incident and perhaps give you a fraction of the feeling of what it might have been like. This movie was worth checking out. Next we have Seance.

[11:49pm] Seance : Kiyoshi Kurosawa presented his movie but he had no clue of the little surprise that the fantasia crew had in store for him. It seems that tommorow will be Kiyoshi's birthday and the fantasia crew decided to celebrate today. They sang him happy birthday with the cake and everything. He seemed a little suprised to say the least, I am sure he wont quickly forget his trip to Montreal. The movie itself was very slow much like his previous movie Charisma and probably also in the same style as Cure which I have yet to see. The movie was about spirits and some ordinary people haunted by one through their own fault. The movie itself was not overly scary it was more of a slow chilling factor, the movie was very enjoyable and the ending was also quite good. Mr. Kurosawa answered a few questions about his movie afterwards. Well thats it for tonight, tommorow we got other movies in store, such as Clean My Name Mr. Coroner and Slashers.

 

(Kiyoshi Kurosawa the director of Seance)

July 19th - [Day 10]

I've gone fishing...

[2:11pm] I guess I might aswell explain my mysterious " I've Gone Fishing " comment. No I haven't actually gone fishing but I was not around to do the usually update. I got a message from N8fire to meet up at St-Sulpice. I had two choices stay home and do a silly update or go and chill on a terrasse on a sunny afternoon. Of course I picked the Terrasse and we are chilling right now with a little Sangria, we will have to get to imperial for before 5pm as we are going to see Small Gauge Trauma. For now I will have some more Sangria.

 

(So this is fishing?)

[4:51pm] We made it back in time and the line has not gone in yet, I might have had a little too much Sangria as I am a tad bit tipsy. No matter it will make the movie that much more interesting.

[6:57pm] Small Gauge Trauma : This is really sad, there was maybe one good short and some others that were decent and then those that were plain horrible. I personnaly dont get bizzare filmaking that has weird images, pointless dialogs and goes absolutely nowhere. I have a feeling this kinda of stuff can be only appreciated when whacked out on weird drugs. I am very open minded but if something is just a bunch of weird images and I gain no entertainment factor from it I can only say one thing " it sucks ". But there are those that enjoy this kind of stuff, I guess to everyone their tastes right. Well we are going for some dinner now, since we seen Clean my name already we are not hyped to see it again. If we make it back before the movie starts then we'll watch it.

 

(Some of the people behind the various short movies)

[9:31pm] Clean My Name Mr. Cororner : We did make it back in time, and we really took our time too with dinner. This was the first time we've watched a movie on the 2nd floor at the Imperial. I have been up there before and I must say there is a very vertigo-ish feeling. But watching a movie is a whole other story, the angle is pretty steep downwards and the subtitles can be blocked by people in front of you. Also there is very little leg room so a long movie will be a painful experience. Since we already seen the movie we did not mind not being able to watch it perfectly but I would not want to be up there when subtiles are important. Next we have Slashers.

 

(Slashers Vs. PS2)

[12:12pm] Slashers was a low budget not so serious action gore type of movie. Its shot as a crazy Japanese gameshow were contestants are chased by psycho killers for 2 straight hours. There are no rules in this game and anything goes, the crazier the better. It sounds a bit like a mix between running man and survivor. This movie was very cool, true you could see that it was a really low budget creation but when something is entertaining that does not really matter. I am really glad I got a chance to see Slashers and those that missed this movie missed out on something special. Tommorow we got Hong Kong night at Fantasia, 3 really good back to back Hong Kong movies. Come and join us for this great experience.

 

(The cast and crew from Slashers)

July 20th - [Day 11]

Hong Kong Movie Night...

[4:58pm] We have been waiting for this day all week, we got 3 excellent movies back to back. One title we are especially excited to see on the big screen is Ebola Syndrome, a disgusting gorish movie from Hong Kong. We cant wait to see the audiences reaction, I have a feelings its going to be one hell of a fun time. Right now we are going to go see Crash Landing, a movie from china.

(PS2 Wagon)

[7:07pm] Crash Landing was a movie produced in China, the movie was very similar to something that Hollywood would do but unlike Hollywood they only had the fraction of the budget and this reflected the quality. None the less it was a decent movie but I personally did not find it very interesting nor did many people. Next up we have Jiang Hu.

[9:14pm] Jiang Hu is a pretty cool and stylish movie, this one is both visually appealing and entertaining. This is a semi serious Triad movie with a mix of comedy and action. It is very well done and the audience enjoyed it. The only real complaint I heard was that the ending was a little vague, other than that this movie is all good. A war named desire is next.

[11:31pm] A War Named Desire is simply a beautiful movie, I was lucky to finally be able to see this one on the big screen. Like Jiang Hu this is another new movie from Hong Kong and it clearly shows the trend in higher quality productions that are both stylish and visually appealing. This is another movie that the crowd enjoyed, the only complaints that I heard was there could have been a little more action in it. Next up is the much awaited Ebola Syndrome.

[1:55am] Ebola Syndrome was very cool, the crowd cheered and seemed to enjoy this movie a lot. I did not see anyone leave so I guess everyone was ready for the nastiest movie of this years fantasia. Ebola is the kind of movie you would never see made in Hollywood, the kinda stuff they show in the movie is very graphic. Not just the fact of the gore but the violent acts that are done such as rape and murder. True this is a low and depraved form of entertainment but it seems as time goes by we become more and more insensitive to this kind of stuff. This was an action packed evening, we'll be back tommorow for some other movies.

July 21th - [Day 12]

Shock Factor...

[7:11pm] Barking Dogs Never Bite : This was a nice little comedy from South Korea. The story was good but the comedy factor was so so, there were a couple of scenes that were funny but nothing hilarious. In general it was a nice Korean movie, next we have Visitor Q.

[9:02pm] Visitor Q : I am still speechless, I did not read up on this movie before checking it out. Maybe that is a good thing because it was a complete surprise. This movie was shot on videocam and was basically about a seriously messed up family, this movie covered a lot of taboo subjects such as incest to necrophelia. Sounds screwed up doesn't it, well it was certainly an interesting movie to say the least.

July 22th - [Day 13]

Fee Hung's Coverage...

[2:55pm] Sakuya : I decided to skip Albator and Godzilla, since I needed to catch up on some much needed sleep. I got in line at 3pm for Sakuya and I was first like most of the time, the best thing about being first in line you get to see everything that is going on in front of the Imperial. Sometimes the guests come a little while before and talk with the people, today I had a chance to see the Director, co-director and producer of Sakuya. My friend in line knew the translator with them so we had a chance to have a nice chat with the co-director. (unfortunetly I dont remember his name but it was the guy with the orange cap) I asked a lot of questions and it seems that he worked twice before with Takashi Miike, being really interested in Miike's work I asked about this controvertial director. The funny thing was that this guy was really impressed that we were more interested in talking with him than the director. A few hours later the movie started, I had trouble getting into the story as this movie was more a childrens fantasy. A lot of people liked this movie, I was very surprised by that, yet again its a matter of personal taste. The movie was very beautiful and full of color and fantasy monsters but the story was very a la Walt Disney (such as love everyone even if there are different or themes of self confidence and friendship). For those who liked this movie or want something in a more mature context I suggest Makaraga (Moon Over Tao).

 

(The Sakuya crew)

The QnA following the movie was also very interesting, so far the best of the Festival this year but I never thought that the "Why Ultraman was not in your movie?" question would be beaten by the stupidity of someone else. During the QnA a moron in the crowd started yelling a question in Japanese to the director, he was actually saying that he welcomed them to Canada and that he liked all his movies (the translator translated what he said aswell). Well there is no problem with just that but after the guy continued to yell stuff and explained how he could speak 5 different languages and all. Why is he telling everyone this, do we care? Does he need attention? Does he think he is special. C'mom, anyways the guy kept on saying stuff and did not want to shut up finally Julien (guy on stage) asked for another question but specified not from that guy, the audience applauded and cheered. It was really funny, I wonder if that guy still felt special after that.

[9:30pm] Kakashi : I had some expectations for Kakashi since Seance and St-John's Wort did not work for me. I was hoping that this would be the best Japanese horror this year but no, it turned out to be even worse and it seemed that the crowd shared that opinion. The movie started off good with the very typical story of a stranger who arrives in a weird village because she is looking for her missing brother. After a while nothing really frightening happens and the scarecrow just looks like dumb zombies and only appear at the end of the movie. No shocking or great scenes to remember after the movie, it was a deception unfortunetly.

[1:10am] Heart of a Warrior : This movie better be good cause my patience is starting to run very low. The director was also there to present this Spanish production, he did not speak too much english but enough to say something about his movie. He seemed like a funny guy who enjoys his job a lot, lets see if this movie is any good. Heart of a Warrior turned out to be a very pleasent movie. Full of fantasy like elements such as seen in Conan or Red Sonja, the story was very good and full of humor. So far this is pretty much the best movie I have seen at Fantasia this year, well that is if I dont count movies that I've already seen before they played at Fantasia. The special effects were very impressive for a small budget movie, they only had 2 million. I strongly suggest this movie to people who like to play table top RPGs or enjoy Fantasy movies. The reaction of the crowd was pretty amazing so I am guessing that everyone enjoyed this movie, the QnA was also one of hte best this year. There were no stupid questions and a lot of informative answers. This was a great way to close the evening, I wont be here tommorow but will be back for Tuesday to see Le Rat and Boogie Pop.

(Karim and the director of Heart of a Warrior)

 

 

To Continue the Journal:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3