JUMI on tour: IFFR 2013

Yes, JUMI went to the International Film Festival in Rotterdam again. This year we were a bit dissappointed in the movies we've seen. JUMI's first movie was Lesson of Evil, by Takashi Miike. It was the first and definitely the best movie we've seen on the festival!

Lesson of the Evil

It's about a very very handsome popular teacher at a high school. Girls adore him, guys think he's cool. Now the teacher wants to deal with bad behavior among the students. By punishing them on an not-so-cool-but-more-painful-way. Then a smart student and a teacher finds out that the handsome teacher isn't really that 'good' after all. Handsome teacher finds out that others know his dark secret, so he decides to teach them a deadly lesson, a lesson of evil... (colleague teacher gets punished in subway, woehoehhh nice scene). I love the acting of the handsome but sick teacher, Hideaki Ito. Lesson of Evil is about blood splatters and gore. It reminds me a bit of Battle Royale. Totally love it!

Pieta 

This Korean movie of Kim Ki-Duk won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, so we had very high expectations of Pieta. We've also heard that Pieta is a real brutal, cruel and controversial Asian movie. Sounded nice!.....But....hm. Pieta is about a heartless loan shark, who's threatening his clients who can't pay their debts. By injuring them, so that he can get his money through a handicap insurance. He doesn't have family, maybe that's why he's so cold hearted. Then he meets a mysterious woman. She claims to be his mom. Meeting this 'mom' changes him into a soft boy. Pieta is a psychological revenge movie with a lot of symbolics. To me, the movie felt too long. Cruel? Uhm, yes some parts were a bit cruel, but I have seen much worse. So I don't know what all the fuzz is about. Our mistake is that we had high expectations, so after the movie we were disappointed. This was not really JUMI's cup of tea :(

Drug War
If you really want to see some fast hardcore action, then this Chinese-Hong Kong movie by Johnnie To is just for you. The story is about a drug lord who's been caught by a police officer. He's forced to cooperate with the police officer. So the drug lord introduces the police officer into the world of drug organizations. There's a lot of shooting and of course drugs and sniffing in Drug War. The movie immediately starts with action and 'ieuwww-moments'. The part when some drug smugglers (mules) get arrested and have to poop their body packing into a plastic basket. Ieeeeeeuwww! But it's a good action movie!

The Complex 

Hideo Nakata. It's been a while since I've seen one of his J-Horrors. I definitely loooove Ringu, Dark Water and Death Note. So I had high expectations of The Complex. Hm. Eventually I didn't get scared once, because I was too busy to suppress my feelings of annoyance towards the main character. The dumb girliegirl Asuka. She moves into an apartment complex. Something strange is going on in the apartment next to her house. As stupid and curious as she is, Asuka 'breaks in' to that apartment. There she finds an old man...dead! OMG. Afterwards strange things occur. She meets a little boy who isn't that innocent. It seems that there's a link between the strange happenings (of course) and her own past.
The movie gets interesting when main character Sasahara (Hiroki Narimiya) is being introduced. Hello eyecandy! Luckily this handsome guy was in it otherwise it was just a 106 minute long scene about a sobbing and naive girl.

We've also seen a Dutch movie: The Resurrection of a Bastard (De Wederopstanding van een Klootzak). But this one was a disappointment too. In short: it's about a ruthless gangster who kills a young mother. Then something snaps in his head and he starts to act all holy and goody-goody. Boring.

So this years favorite is Lesson of Evil. Why? We got sucked into the story. After the movie, we were still in the Lesson of Evil mood... uhhh no I don't mean that we acted sick as hell as the main character *eheh*. But uhm...ah well, you have to see it yourself ^_^