Welcome
to Kung Fu Cult Cinema's special Fantasia
coverage for 2003. Its been 2 years since the last
fantasia and here at KFCC we've been seriously itching
to have this festival start. We hope to bring you
some of the sights and experiences the festival has
to offer this year. Enjoy the coverage!!
Part
1 (July 17th to July 27th)
Click Here
for Part 2 (July 28th to August 11th)
Thursday
July 17th
The Opening night...
This is the moment we've all been waiting for, the
opening night for Fantasia 2003. This year the festival
has been moved to the Hall Theater at Concordia University.
We were a little uncertainly if this location would
have the Fantasia feel of years past at the Imperial
Theater. It was a pleasent surprise when got there,
the large fantasia banner was hanging over the street
and there was a huge line up. We knew it was going
to be like old times, the location might not be the
same but the spirit is still the same.
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| (Outside
Concordia University) |
We have opted to pass on the Ressurection
of the Little Match Girl and decided to explore
this new location a little more while we waited for
Undead to start. After checking out
the setup we concluded that the Fantasia organizers
could not have picked a better location to movie the
festival. The theater itself was nice and large, the
only drawback was that the seats were not as comfertable
as at the imperial.
| |
|
| (We're
do we find the tickets??) |
Undead was a very interesting movie,
nothing like a gory zombie movie. There were moments
during the movie where I thought it was going to be
ultra cheesie but on the overall it turned out to
be pretty good, a mix of cheese, style and humor.
The best thing about the movie was watching it with
the Fantasia crowd, its great to have the audience
cheer for all the gore that should splatter onto the
screen. The great crowd is probably one of the elements
that makes the Fantasia festival so entertaining.
Sunday
July 20th
A Nice Sunday Afternoon...
What better way to enjoy a nice sunday afternoon
than to spend it chilling on the patio with nice tropical
drinks. And you all probably thought I was going to
say spend the afternoon watching movies. Actually
the movies come in the evening and tonight we have
none other than the South Korean swordplay epic :
Musa the Warrior. I havent had a
chance to see this movie yet so I am pretty excited.
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| (The
above mentioned tropical drinks) |
Burning Paradise
Just came back from today’s viewing, Burning
Paradise and Intimate Confession. Not that many people
for Burning Paradise, but the movie has already been
presented at Fantasia a few years ago. They had a
small problem of mixing the roll of the film, as the
movie was divided on 5 rolls, they put roll 1-3-2-4-5.
But still the movie was good.
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| (some
more Lobby visuals) |
Intimate Confession of a Chinese Courtesan
As for Intimate, almost half of the cinema was full.
People seemed to enjoy the movie, but it took a while
before the movie really kicked in has the first part
is a bit of a melo-drama but the middle and the action
at the end is pretty entertaining and surprising.
Musa the Warrior
We did not the expect to see the huge crowd that we
found when we arrived at the theater. It seems the
movie was sold out. Musa turned out
to be an excellent film, lots of great action and
interesting characters. This movie certainly classifies
as epic and I can understand it why it was sold out.
Mind you there are some other great movies that played
on the weekend that did not do so good, Sympathy
for Mr. Vengence which is an exceptional
movie that did not attract as many people as we have
hoped. Its a shame because that is one movie that
should not be missed.
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| (Sold
Out - Musa the Warrior) |
Monday
July 21th
Expect the worse and find
the best...
Tonight we are going to see Ressurection
of the Little Match Girl, I am not quite
sure why I am going to see this movie. It did terrible
at the korean box office and some people who've seen
the first presentation of this movie told me that
it was not all that great. Deep down I guess I am
hoping that this movie is just so bad that its actually
good, those are some of the most entertaining.
| |
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| (Come
buy some way cool Fantasia merchandise) |
I
take everything back... Ressurection of the
Little Match Girl was incredible, I'm serious.
Visually this movie works incredibly well, just the
concept behind the opening credits is great. It is
a movie not to be taken seriously, especially with
all the Matrix similarities which are simply hilarious
in my opinion. This movie is good fun, my favorite
at the fest so far but I am sure there is more good
stuff to come.
Tuesday
July 22th
HK Horror done right...
FLCL
The big theater was packed, not surprising, as anime
are most of the time sold out at Fantasia. The show
was introduced by one of the producer of the English
version. As for the show it self, it seemed that most
people liked it very much. FLCL is probably one of
the most imaginative anime I have ever seen but also
one of the most confusing. The jokes are typical Japanese
slapstick humor and I have to give credit to the people
who created this as they have great imagination. Check
out this animation if you have the chance, it’s
worth it.
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| (
Way cool monster suit ) |
The Eye is on the menu tonight,
and no I have not seen it yet, I was saving this one
for the big screen. I have been waiting to see this
movie for quite some time now, many people have told
me it is very affective in the horror genre. HK is
not know for a very scary horror genre so I am pretty
curious to see if this movie lives up to the hype.
| |
|
| (A
nice evening for The Eye) |
There was an incredibly huge crowd for this movie,
I think it may have sold out. All I have to say that
hype is not a good thing. The Eye
was not a bad movie, in fact the horror elements were
very well done but it was not as good as I was expecting.
What probably ruined the movie was all the drama stuff
that kind of cut into the good quality horror. Overall
it was entertaining.
Wednesday
July 23th
Back for more...
Royal Tramp
It was the first time for me in the second theater,
which is much smaller that the other one but the atmosphere
is great. The picture is also very sharp and the sound
is much better than what I expecting. Only complaint
is that we sit a pretty close to each other, so if
you have a tall guy behind you, just like I had, you
might get bumped a few times in the back.
I already saw that movie before, on VCD with poor
subtitles, so this time the experience was much better
and much more fun. However, I know that I’m
missing a lot of Stephen Chow humors as a lot of his
Jokes don’t make too much sense because of the
translation. Anyway, the show was great and I no longer
fear to go check movies in that smaller theater room.
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| (
From inside the theater) |
Man in White
If it was not for my friend with me I would have probably
clawed my own eyes out during this movie. Simply said
I really did not click with this film and found it
to be incredibly boring. Miike sometimes makes some
really exceptional films, this in my opinion was not
one of them. Just the shaky camera was unbearable,
some scenes the camera was so shaky you could not
even focus on the actor talking. From what people
said the opinion is pretty mixed on this movie as
some people really enjoyed it while other like me
completely hated it.
BTW, Bubba HO-Tep and The Returner are both sold
out. Hope you already got your tickets. There are
also big rumors that a special short film about a
dark super hero might be shown this year at Fantasia.
Thursday
July 24th
Bruce Campbell Rules!!!
Inner Senses
Why do I find just about every attempt HK makes at
horror to be completely hilarious. This movie was
no exception to that, a few horror elements mixed
in with a sappy dramatic story. Not to mention that
story is another rehash of the "I see dead people"
concept. Sure a couple years ago that was original
but I've lost count the number of HK movies that have
used that premise in the last 2 years. Overall the
movie was not bad, just a little too much deja vu
for me.
Inner Senses (second perspective)
Damn, a good movie ruined by cheap effects and a stupid
ending. It’s a shame that this movie is the
last Leslie Chung movie, that guy deserves more than
this. The first part of the movie is very well made.
The story is interesting with great atmosphere and
good acting. However, near the end of the movie, we
are starting to figure out what is going on and then
the wacky cheap ghost starts to appear. They used
some kind of cheap cracking wooden sound with bad
make up, and that really made the crowd laugh. Nobody
was taking the movie seriously after that. Check it
if you want to see Leslie Chung’s last movie
but except that the movie is not worth it.
Bubba Ho-tep
This is by far one of the coolest and funniest movies
I've seen in a long time. You have Bruce Campbell
who plays Elvis in an retirement home who teams up
with an old black guy (Ossie Davis) who believes he
is JFK and together they take on a Mummy. This concept
is pure brilliance and the movie is truly hilarious,
its something that I really enjoyed a lot.
Friday
July 25th
Chinese Vampire Action
Vampire Hunters
This is a way fun movie, very much like those old
fantasy swordplay movies from the glory days of Hong
Kong cinema. The vampire might not have been quite
like the traditional vampires from the old movies
but it does not change the fact that this movie was
damn entertaining. The only bad point of the movie
is that it takes place mostly at night so most of
the scenes are very dark and a little hard to see
what is going on occasionally. In any case this movie
was really refreshing.
Saturday
July 26th
A fine Fantasia Saturday
Cowboy Bebop
The movie was introduced the Martin from Le
Marché Clandestin (Montreal Anime
Video club). Fantasia tried to organize a cosplay
contest before the show, but nobody showed up for
the contest. Probably because they didn’t put
that much effort in promoting the contest which resulted
in no contestant. So instead, they did the regular
question and answer with the crowd. One of the question
was “The full name of ED”, and yes someone
got it right.
I’m not a big fan of Bebop, I saw the complete
series and I found it very original but the movie
doesn’t have the same quality than the series.
In fact the movie just plays like a regular episode
except less original. In all I found it a bit boring,
still recommended to those Cowboy fan but don’t
have your expectation too high. One thing that I really
didn’t like is that the show was in English
and not in Japanese with English subtitle, like the
guide mentioned.
Godzilla: GMK
Oh my god! That was the most awesome show of the whole
festival. The movie was introduced by the director
himself and then the Fantasia crew organized a small
show with a very cool Godzilla costume and another
random monster. They then started to fight with each
other until Godzilla left the stage victorious, that
was pretty funny.
I don’t like Kaiju movies that much, but I
really like the Gamera series. Godzilla: GMK
was directed by Shusuke Kaneko, who also directed
the new Gamera trilogy, so that was the main reason
why I wanted to watch this one and I was not disappointed
one bit. The crowd went wild from the very first minute,
especially with the joke about the American Godzilla,
up to the end credits and I’m sure that everyone
agreed that this Godzilla is one of the very best
ever made, and for me the best one I ever saw. Extremely
close to Gamera 3 generally speaking, great characters,
serious story, lot of cool effects, lots of people
die and very cool monsters. This movie is indeed a
must see for any Kaiju, Godzilla and Gamera fan!
Naked Weapon
There is nothing that I love more than a good midnight
show at Fantasia. That is when the best crowd comes
out for the movies; by best crowd I mean the kind
of crowd that is really interactive. Nothing like
watching a movie with the audience cheering at all
the choice moments. Naked Weapon
turned out to be quite entertaining, a nice mix of
action and cheesy moments.
Sunday
July 27th
Savior of the Soul Revisted
Saviour of the Soul
I have already seen this movie plenty of times before
but I decided to check it on the big screen, it’s
always a fun experience with the fantasia crowd. More
than half of the theatre was full, which surprised
me as the movie has already been shown at fantasia
before. Again, people were cheering and laughing during
the screening, it seems that people liked it in general.
The movie uses a lot of cheap effect mixed with comedy
so If you don’t take the movie too seriously,
it’s a fun ride.
Click
Here for Part 2 (July 28th to August 11th)
Peter Zsurka
Janick Neveu
08/13/2003
