Eat Drink Man Woman is a Taiwanese drama directed by Ang Lee in 1994. The narrative begins with Uncle Chu, a chef in a fancy restaurant that loses his sense of taste. He has three daughters and he cooks elaborate meals for them every night. The oldest daughter is a school teacher, the middle daughter works for a corporation and travels often, and the youngest is still in school and works at a Wendy’s. Jia-Ning, the youngest daughter, sees her friend playing hard to get with a boy, treating him like he’s worthless. Every day, the boy waits outside and Jia-Ning becomes friendly with him. Over the course of the movie, they go out to eat together and discuss their philosophies of love. They fall in love, and Jia-Ning’s friend wonders why he isn’t waiting around for her anymore. Jia-Ning reveals that she has been romantically involved with him. He lives alone because his family is overseas and the boy impregnates Jia-Ning. She moves out of the house leaving Uncle Chu by the end of the movie. Jia-Chien, the corporate woman, is having casual sex with an old boyfriend and he leaves her for a woman he wants to marry. Disheartened, Jia-Chien meets a young man at her place of work and slowly falls in love with him. She spends her money on an apartment in a building under construction, but by the end of the movie it is revealed that the building is on contaminated land. Jia-Chien loses her deposit and moves back in with Chu.

Meanwhile, Chu is putting hard hours at his place of work and his best friend has a heart attack. Chu makes his appearances less frequent at the restaurant. He begins cooking lunch for his love interest’s daughter. An elderly woman is courting Chu and in the final moments of the movie, he reveals that the young woman with the daughter and he will be married.

Jia-jen had her heart broken in college and swears off men. A new volleyball coach is hired at the highschool she works at, and he takes a liking to her. At this time, the highschool boys are writing her love letters as a joke because she’s so high strung. Jia-jen thinks that it is the volleyball coach, and while he does like her, she breaks into tears when she figures out he’s not writing the letters. The volleyball coach makes her break out of her shell and she takes another chance at love.

I really didn't like this film at all.  It seemed to drag on and was too ridiculous and boring for me.  The only entertaining scene from the film for me was when the uncle died in the restaurant's kitchen.  That part was hilarious.

Tsotsi

The movie starts off with Tsotsi(meaning thug in the Tsotsitaals) and his gang robbing a man on the train. One of the gang members, Butcher, kills the man with an ice pick after they take his loot. Tsotsi, Butcher, Boston and Aap go to a bar afterward, where Teacher Boy (Boston) gets into an argument with Tsotsi. Boston gets his face lumped up real badly, and Tsotsi is kicked out of the bar.

Later, Tsotsi leaves the shanty town and heads up to the rich area near Johannesburg. He shoots a young black woman as she's pulling out of her driveway and steals her car. By the time Tsotsi gets away, he hears a baby crying in the back seat. He takes the child back to his shack in Soweto after abandoning the vehicle. The woman he shot survives in the hospital. After coming to, she helps make a composite sketch of Tsotsi.

 At the train station, Tsotsi follows a parapalegic back to his hovel in the middle of the night. He accuses the man of being able to walk and smacks his box of alms into the alleyway. Tsotsi holds a gun to the man and asks him why he lives like a dog.

 The baby won't stop crying, because Tsotsi left an open bottle of formula with the baby in a shopping bag and bugs get at the infant's face. Noticing a young woman at the water hole, he follows her and her baby back to the shanty she lives in. At gunpoint, Tsotsi demands the young woman breastfeed his child. She asks if she can wash the dirty baby afterward. While all this is going on, Tsotsi zones out to his childhood.

 His dying mother is bed-ridden and Tsotsi, then David, is by her side. His abusive, wasted father scolds him, telling him to get away from her. While his father is screaming, David runs outside behind some chicken cages. His father yells at him, telling him not to stare at him with fear. Their family dog is barking and his father snaps its vertabrae with two kicks. The dying, crawling dog whimpers as it exits the house just as David runs away.

 The day after, Tsotsi takes the stolen baby to a bunch of concrete cylinders that derelict boys sleep in. That's where he met Aap. At this time, Aap butcher and Teacher boy are being recruited by Fela, a local crime lord. Aap calls on Tsotsi and hears the baby crying. In turn, Tsotsi takes the baby to the young woman he demands feed the stolen child and leaves the baby there.

 Tsotsi goes to the bar where Soekie is looking after Boston. He tells Soekie he'll look after Boston and he asks Teacher boy whether or not he's really a teacher. Boston replies that he didn't have enough money to take the certification test. In response to this, Tsotsi tells the gang they will pull one more job to make the money.

 Back at the home of the woman he shot, Tsotsi's gang tie down John, the hospitalized woman's husband, and rob his house. While Tsotsi is robbing baby food, Butcher steals John's gun. Aap goes to make a sandwich, and John flips a burglar alarm. Butcher attempts to shoot John with his own gun, but a round isn't chambered. Tsotsi shoots butcher and he and Aap escape the house in the woman's vehicle.

 Soekie tells the police that she knows the face on the composite sketch and sends the police to Tsotsi's shack. Meanwhile, the young woman that feeds the stolen baby reveals that she knows where the baby came from. She first asks to keep it and then asks Tsotsi to return it. Back at the shack, the police question Teacher Boy, thinking he's Tsotsi. Soekie tells them otherwise.

 Tsotsi goes to the train station and gives the parapalegic man money from the stolen vehicle he scrapped at Fela's. He stops at the gate of John's home and says he will leave the baby. The security officers roll up and Tsotsi hangs onto the baby. After a confrontation, Tsotsi relieves himself of the baby and is arrested in tears.

 I thought this movie was great. It had both a driving narrative and excellent commentary on the disparity between the rich and poor as well as family.

Walk on Water

Walk on Water is a film about an assassin for the Israeli   government.  The beginning of the film has the assassin, Eyal following his target and his family.  He walks up to the man as he is tending to his child and stabs him and injects him with a needle of poison.  The next day at his office, his boss, Menachem, shows him that the assassination is all over the newspapers around the world.  Eyal returns home later that night to discover that his wife has committed suicide.

Menachem wants Eyal to see a psychiatrist following the suicide of his wife, but Eyal argues that he doesn’t need to.  Eyal is now assigned a new job of tracking down a former Nazi soldier that was reported dead but has been in hiding for 40 years.  Eyal is sent to be a tour guide for the Nazi soldier’s grandson, Axel while he is in Israel.  Eyal brings Axel to meet up with his sister Pia who lives on a Kibbutz.  While Axel is learning a traditional Israeli folk dance, Eyal exits out and breaks into Pia’s room and sets a bug in it.  Later that night, Eyal listens to their conversations about their family issues.  The next day, Eyal takes Axel to the Dead Sea and Axel tries to walk on the water and falls into it.  Eyal asks him why he thinks he can walk on water, and Axel tells him if you are pure from the heart he believes you can walk on water.  Later they cover themselves in mud to use as sunblock.  They then hop in the Sea to wash off the mud and use a beach shower to rinse off the rest of the mud and talk about each other’s penis’.

One night, Pia, Axel and Eyal go out to dinner and Eyal asks the waiter where a good party was taking place that night.  The three of them go to the party after dinner and Axel meets up with the waiter from the restaurant and starts dancing with him and Eyal then discovers that Axel is gay and becomes uncomfortable and angry at the idea and leaves the night club.   The next day Eyal picks up Pia, Axel and the waiter from the hotel they were staying at.  Axel asks if they can drop off the waiter at his uncle’s store.  Eyal is angry because the waiter is an Arab, but he does so anyway.  On Axel’s last night in Israel, he and his sister talk about why she refuses to speak with their parents again.  She tells him that she overheard that her Nazi war criminal grandfather was still alive and that their parents had been lying to them about him their entire lives. 

Axel arrives back home for his father’s 70^th birthday and shortly after, Eyal also shows up after listening to the audio tape he recorded.  During the birthday party, Axel’s mother had arranged for the grandfather to arrive and Axel and Eyal see him for the first time.  Eyal quickly exits and meets up with Menachem to tell him that the grandfather was there and that they can bring him in for trial in Israel.  Menachem tells Eyal to kill him before God does.  Eyal arrives back at the party and the grandfather is now asleep in bed.  As Eyal is preparing to inject the old man with poison, Axel can be seen in the background under the door watching him.  Eyal fails at killing the old man because he feels he can no longer kill.  Axel then walks up to the grandfather and turns his oxygen up and it kills him.  Eyal tells Axel he can no longer kill and that he no longer want to kill.  He then tells him that his wife killed herself and left him a note saying that he kills everyone that is around him. 

The next scene is Eyal taking care of his baby and Pia sleeping in bed to show that he has truly reformed his life.  The end scene is of him writing an email to Axel telling him about his family and asking him to come by for a few days so he and Pia can get away.

I thought this was a great movie from start to finish.  It’s not the typical movie that I would enjoy, but I thought it was well done and had an interesting story with a great ending. 

I think the theme of the film is that it’s never too late to let go.

Bombay

Bombay is a film about a couple from different religious backgrounds falling in love with each other, against both of their parents wishes because of their families’ intolerances and the film then progressive to a larger stage of intolerance as the Hindu’s and Muslims in Bombay go to war with each other.

                The film starts off with Shekhar spying on a group of Indian Muslim women singing and dancing like they normally do in every day life.  He soon falls for one of his sister’s classmates that happens to be the orchestrator of this singing and dancing.   Shaila is very nervous and thrown off by this man spying on her and looking at her while she is singing and dancing.  Soon Shakhar starts stalking her on her route home and she notices each time he is creeping around.  One day, on Shaila’s boat ride back home, Shakhar somehow manages to get on the boat dressed as Shaila’s Muslim friend.

                Shakhar tells Shaila to meet him at a location if she loves him and wants to be with him.  Shaila, being frightened, but filled with an excitement she has never felt before meets Shakhar at the designated location.  The both of them decide they want to be married.  Shakhar goes to Shaila’s house to inform her father and he and she will become wed.  Her father is very angry about this and wants to kill Shakhar.  Shakhar then goes to inform his father about the wedding, and his father is angry and wants to disown him for this.  Shakhar’s father goes to Shaila’s father and both of them argue and want to kill eachother because neither of them want their children to marry each other due to Shakhar being Hindu and Shaila being Hindu.

                Shakhar then moves to Bombay to start a life there for him and his soon to be family.  He gets an apartment and lives there for two years by himself writing letters to Shaila.  Shaila eventually moves out there and they get married immediately.  Neither of their families are present at this event.  At first the owner of the building they live in doesn’t approve of the marriage because of Shaila being Muslim, so she has her relatives sleep in the room with Shakhar and Shaila so they cannot consummate their marriage.  Eventually, the landlord has her relatives leave the room and Shaila becomes pregnant with twin boys.   

                Six years later, war is breaking out Muslims against Hindus.  The family gets separated and the two boys are doused in gasoline and are repeatedly asked over and over against if they were Muslim or Hindu while terrorist men are trying to set them ablaze.  Shakhar swoops in and rescues his boys. 

                Some time later, Shakhar’s father comes to visit him because he is worried something may have happened to him and his family during the senseless slaughters.  A few days later, Shaila’s parents come to visit to make sure she is alright.  During this time more senseless murders happen and Shaila’s father saves his grandson and his son in law’s father from being murdered. 

                Another riot breaks out and both Shakhar’s father and Shaila’s parents get blown up in the couple’s apartment.  The couple’s children are then separated from them.  Shakhar goes crazy and tells the terrorists to burn him alive and continues to go on a psychotic rant that manages to stop all the violence.  Eventually they are reunited with their kids.

                The theme of this film was that were are all people that wants to just live life without religious intolerance.  I enjoyed this film, but having lived the part of the beginning of the movie it was also very sad for me.  It also reinforced my thoughts that religion will be the downfall of man.Bom

               

The Unknown Woman

The Unknown Woman is a film about a runaway prostitute that believes she has found the location of one of her children that she was forced to up.  The film begins with Irena being assaulted by her pimp to establish a setup of her former life.  The scene changes to Irena being in a new town and having a new look to herself ot seemingly escape and fool anyone that may be looking for her.  Irena has now changed her profession from prostitute to a maid.  She begs t the owner of the apartment building where her daughter lives to let her clean the building and he agrees buy for a percentage of her wages.

                Irena soon learns that the family who has her daughter already has a nanny.  She befriends the wqoman and eventually tries to kill her by tripping her down the stairs of the apartment building.  The nanny is left in a comatose like state and is moved into an assisted live facility.  Because of this Irena is now able to move her way in as the nanny for the family.  She makes herself out to be the perfect candidate for the family by searching through their trash to learn what foods they like to eat and also by rushing to learn to drive and getting her license and she is soon hired by the family.

                At first, the daughter  doesn’t like Irena because she misses her old nanny, as a result she treats Irena poorly, but Irena soon wins her over by buying her a castle playset and putting it together for her.  Now Irena’s past begins to catch up to her and she is attacked one night after work by a gang of santa’s that her former pimp presumably sent after her.  Because of this she is forced to miss work for a week.

Irena learns that the daughter is very sensitive and that she is hurt very easily and that students at the school pick on her often. Irena begins to teach the daughter to fight back and get up when she is pushed down.  She ties the little girl up and pushes her down over and over again onto pillows and tells her to get up using just her legs, after she learns this, she starts pushing her down on a hard wood floor until the girl got angry enough to start smacking Irena.  At this point, Irena knows the little girl has finally learned to fight back against the people that have wronged her.

One day while in the park with the little girl, Irena believes she sees her former pimp Mold by the trees.  This comes as a shock to Irena because she thinks she murdered him.  Now Irena also believes the little girl has been kidnapped because she couldn’t find her during their game of hide and seek even after calling out to her.   The mother of the girl now becomes suspicious of Irena’s past and decides she no longer wants her as a nanny.  Mold then has the mother killed by cutting her break lines to frame Irena.

The police question Irena and she says she believes the little girl is her daughter.  The police question Mold’s masseuse and she says Mold told her to make up a location and name and that it was just a coincidence.  The woman didn’t want to, so Mold read the name of a company and city off the back of his necklace. 

The police give the girl and Irena a DNA test and prove to Irena that she isn’t the mother of the girl.  She then leads the police to the body of Mold and goes to jail for some years.  At the end of the fiml, Irena  is released from prison, and the little girl is an adult now and has come to greet Irena at her release.

I think the theme of the film is that it’s never too late to start over.  I really enjoyed this film.  I thought it was a good mystery thriller and I thought the end was touching.