colinr0380 wrote:But what about the problematic English lead in Mahjong, zedz? And there is also this comment from your post on A Confucian Confusion on the Edward Yard filmmaker's thread:
The word on the film was "it's not as good as A Brighter Summer Day", but that's an insanely vague description, and could conceal something very great indeed. Even a film only half as good would be a must-see.
When I finally did see it, I understood the general lack of enthusiasm. It's a dazzlingly constructed film. In fact, it's probably Yang's most overtly 'constructed' film, assembled within an inch of its life like a Preston Sturges film on steroids.
(Although I wouldn't write a filmmaker off for one or two weaker films!)
Mahjong and
A Confucian Confusion are still two of the greatest films of the 90s, and
A Confucian Confusion is pretty much flawless (as long as you're on board with what it's setting out to do). But none of this mitigates the sheer awfulness of Nick Erickson's performance in
Mahjong!
EDIT: Oh, and I probably need to note that my write-ups on some of those films predated my seeing them theatrically, and
A Confucian Confusion in particular proved to be an audience film
par excellence. The comedy works like crazy, and it has that Tatiesque quality of different sectors of the audience reacting to different things at different times, so it's much, much funnier and even 'busier' in its real context than in isolated home viewing. As for
Mahjong, the mood swings that the film is based around are much more brutal and effective on the big screen. Everything else working so well makes it easier to forget Erickson when he's off-screen. Also, they're both films that thrive on visual detail, and so are especially poorly served by the available digital sources.