Resident Evil (2002)

Resident Evil is a 2002 sci-fi horror film written and directed by Paul W. S. Anderson, and starring Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Eric Mabius, James Purefoy, Martin Crewes and Colin Salmon.The movie was based on Capcom's survival horror video game series Resident Evil. In this article, I will discuss the genre of Resident Evil.

The film tells a story about a leakage of an artificial virus turns into a Zombie Apocalypse. Umbrella Corporation built an underground secret facility “The Hive”, this is the place where viral weapons are researched and developed. The film starts with someone breaks into The Hive to steal the “T-virus”, the virus is able to bring back the dead and turn them into zombies. Before leaving, he destroyed one of the virus and it quickly spread in the air conditioning system and contaminated the whole building. The company’s artificial intelligent “Red Queen” decided to kill everyone to stop the virus from escaping the building.

Alice wakes up in a mansion with memory loss, soon a few soldier broke into the house, told her she is the security to protect The Hive. They are on a mission to shut down Red Queen and they bring along Alice, Matt Anderson who they arrested in the mansion, and Spence who is also the guard of The Hive, they found him passed out on the train heading toward The Hive. After shutting down Red Queen, the main power of the building has been cut off and release the Zombies locked by the computer. The group of people needs to head back to the ground before the gate sealed forever. They will need to survive from the threat zombies and “Licker” the monster created by Umbrella Corp.

Resident Evil can be considered as a hybrid film that mixes with the genre of horror, science fiction, and action. It can be categorized as the sub-genre of unnatural horror as it consists threat to normalcy and bodily mutilations. In this case, Zombies are dead people contaminated by T-virus, the virus altered their body state and turns them into creatures with no intelligence and driven by the need to feed.

The horror genre is commonly combines with science fiction. Threats are coming from the development of science and technology may serve to be destructive. Resident Evil contains semantics that can be identified it as the elements of science fiction. The movie sets its story background in the near future, a new technology product from Umbrella Corp. became caused the threats of the movie. The monsters in the film are also the product of science, such as Zombies, Lickers, and Red Queen.

As for the syntax, the theme of Utopia vs Dystopia can be found in the movie. Science and technologies were portrayed as the evil threaten to humanity, cruel decisions are made during technology development. Umbrella Corp. had clearly gone above the law in their science research, making the deadly virus and creating monsters in the science experiment, their creations are so dangerous and it leads to the destruction when it loses control. Except for that, Red Queen as an artificial intelligent that consists no compassion in her program is one of the threats in the movie. She makes the decision to kill everybody simply because it is the safest way to keep T-virus in the building. She ordered Alice to kill Rain in exchange for escape route even they can get the cure on the train because she does not take chances. It shows that the smartest computer can turn into the most dangerous killer for the greatest good.

Sepet (2004)

Sepet is a local romantic comedy-drama released on 2004. The movie was directed by Yasmin Ahmad and starring Ng Choo Seong and Sharifah Amani. This is one of Yasmin’s highly appraised movies and won multiple awards including “Best Asian Film Award” in Tokyo International Film Festival 2005, “Best Film” in Ninth Malaysian Video Awards and more.

Sepet is a romantic story between a Chinese boy Jason and a Malay girl Orked. Jason worked as a CD seller in the market and instantly fell in love with Orked when she brought Chinese movie from his stall. They started to see each other. They have faced pressure from the society because of their racial difference but it does not stop them to love each other. Jason got into trouble when he realizes he impregnates to his ex-girlfriend, Maggie, who is also the younger sister of a local Don of Chinese gangster, Jimmy. He decides to take responsibility to support Maggie and her baby, Orked were heartbroken and refuse to see him again or answer to his phone. Orked received the scholarship with her result and she decides to continue her study in England. To met Orked before she leaves, Jason rush to the airport with his bike and ends up in a car accident. The story ends after Orked reading his letter and forgives him by confessed her love.

Malaysia has been a multi-racial society but we can hardly find local films that discuss the racial and religious issue because our society had always thought the subject is too sensitive to put it on the silver screen. The plot of Sepet develop around this Chinese-Malay couple, as the plot developed, we are able to see how the culture difference between a Chinese and Malay family, how normal people will react when they know their friend are dating with someone from different race, and how their family members consider their relationship more on “did they suit for each other?” and not “did he a Malay or a Chinese?”. 

There is a scene when Lin’s boyfriend mocking her for dating a Chinese guy with “sepet” eye, she refutes by saying Malay men been married with different races for generation and nobody said a word, but when she do it people starts to make noise. It shows that how men often treat women as their personal belonging, they were not happy to see a girl having a relationship with men from other races because they see it as someone try to occupy their “property”.

The story of Sepet is actually very simple, the acting and the camera technique used in the movie makes it a very moving, artsy film. The acting in Sepet is very natural and realistic, the characters in the movie do things that normal people will do in their daily life, the shooting continues even when the actors choked on their lines because normal people chock on their word in the daily life too. The film used a lot of long shot even in a conversation, instead of showing us both of the characters in a conversation, the camera holds still and focuses on only one character, we get to see they complete reaction when he or she get the response from other people

VISITS: Hungry Ghost Anthology (2004)

Visits: Hungry Ghosts Anthology, is a Malaysian horror film released in 2004. The film was directed by four directors: Yuhang Ho, James Lee, Low Ngai Yuen, and Ng Tian Hann. The film had received the awards of Tokyo International Film Festival, Best ASEAN film (Bronze) Malaysian Video Awards 2004, and 88u8y8International Film Festival

Based on Susan Hayward, postmodernism possesses pessimistic skepticism on modernism; constituting critical analysis on structuralism, ideology, gender. Except for that, it promotes reflective stands on social, political and cultural agendas and resonances, thus suggesting an “anything goes” attitude. Postmodernism encouraging blurring of the strict boundaries assigned in modernism and structuralism.

The movie consist of four individual stories directed by four different directors, each story was about 25 minute. The first story titled 1314 was directed by Low Ngai Yuen, tells a story of two schoolgirls, Mae Ling and Jae Chyi attempt to suicide together but Mae Ling survived and Jae Chyi died in that accident. Mae Ling lost her memory and being haunted by Jae Chyi when she wakes up in a hospital. In the process of getting back her memory, Mae Ling discovered Jae Chyi boyfriend could be the real killer. The next story is James Lee’s Waiting For Them. Working lady, Sam keeps getting phone calls from her friend Anne to complain about her lesbian breakup. After losing contact with Anne for a few days, Anne shows up in Sam’s apartment and Sam asking her to stay overnight. Sam soon found out that Anne already been dead for two days.

The third story, Nodding Scoop directed by Ng Tian Hann. An ambitious Young filmmaker and his friend playing Nodding Scoop, a prediction ritual that requires a spirit to possess on a hanging scoop, in order to make a documentary. This went wrong when they actually summoned a real ghost. Anybody Home directed by Ho Yuhang tell the story using shots from surveillance cameras. A maintenance man having this unhealthy obsession toward a woman living in the apartment, and he broke into her house and planted hidden cameras to watch her daily life. He found out that woman is actually a killer who keeps human body in her fridge. The women killed him before he runs away in terror.

Visits: Hungry Ghosts Anthology can be categorized as a postmodernism film as it against structuralism. The film is a collection of four independent short horror stories that do not link to each other, it does not follow the typical 3 act structure but four  stories with a structure of their own.

The postmodernism theme of “more human than human” can be found in the stories. In 1314, Jae Chyi’s spirit shows humanity when the audience realize she is trying to protect Mae Ling from her boyfriend’s malice intention. In the story of Waiting for Them, it enhances on the friendship between Anne and Sam. Even though Anne already died and it was her ghost that be with Sam the whole time, but she did not try to harm her, and even warned Sam when she suspects her house was haunted by another spirit.

Referance

Postmodern Movies. (n.d.). Retrieved August 29, 2016, from http://www.onpostmodernism.com/movies 

The Maid (2005)

The Maid (2005) is a Singapore horror movie directed by Kelvin Tong, starring Hong Huifang, Chen Shucheng, Su Weiming and Philippine actress Alessandra De Rossi. The movie had choose "Hungry Ghost Festival" as the main setting and lead us to discover about the festival itself through the perspective of a foreigner, which is Rosa Dimaano. In this article, I am going to analyze The Maid by looking to the semantic and syntactic approach of the movie.

The movie start from Rose Dimaano (Alessandra De Rossi) leaves her hometown to be a maid in Singapore to support her sick brother back in Philippine. Her employers, Mr. Teo (Chen Shucheng) and Ms. Teo (Hong Huifang) treated her very well and their mentally retarded son, Ah Soon (Su Weiming) accepts her quickly. She arrived the country during Chinese seventh month which is also the "Hungry Ghost Month". During that time, the hell gates open and the spirit will walk among the living for 30 days. Due to her ignorance of the culture, Rosa accidently stepped on the ashes of burned paper money and offended the taboo of Hungry Ghost Month. Rosa soon realize she was haunted, as she started to see dead people around her. To keep her job, Rosa suffered in the fright and terror but soon she realizes there is a spirit in the house trying to communicate with her.

Horror film are designed to create terror and evoke hidden fear by showing the situation of human versus danger,uncertainty events such as ghost, monster or maniac killer.The semantic and syntactic of horror film can be easily recognized from the movie. The location of The Maid was usually the old house, the stage of Chinese Opera, and rooms with dim light. Religious ritual was highly connected to the supernatural events of the movie take place in the Seventh Month. The lighting in the film are usually dark and sometimes using blue and red lighting as the metaphor of hell.The movie used a lot of sound effects and background music to create jump-scare effect, for example, the scene when Rosa swept the ashes in front of the house and Ms. Teo yell over her.

The theme of the movie is the classic good vs evil. Rosa is the pure and innocent girl and Ms. and Mr. Teo is the evil who killed Esther after she being raped by Ah Soon. In the end, Rosa escape from Ms. and Mr. Teo attempt to murder her and brings back Esther remains body for a proper burial, while Ms. and Mr. Teo died in their own evil behaviors. Death usually happens in a horror movie. In The Maid, Rosa had witnessed a few death including little boy died in car accident, the foreign worker who jumped from the building after being possessed by a ghost, Esther who being burned alive and hidden in a Chinese drum, and almost got herself killed by Ms. and Mr. Teo after discovered Esther's death. After being terrorized by the haunted situation throughout the whole film, Rosa survived as the final girl in the movie.

Crank (2006)

Crank is an American action comedy film written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor and starring Jason Statham, Amy Smart, and Jose Pablo Cantillo.

I am going to discuss on the action genre by analysis from the aspect of semantic and syntactic approach. Genre can be classified by looking at the semantic and syntactic of the film, films from the same genre will have similarities in their themes and the cinematography.

The action genre was started around the time of Edwin Porter with The Great Train Robbery (1903). The action films usually consist of continuous high energy physical stunts and activities, extended chase scenes, fights and escapes, non-stop motion, spectacular rhythm, and pacing, features various modes of transportation, and spectacular visual effect. While the syntaxes are usually good vs evil, violent & graphic imageries and themes. The threat can only resolves after the protagonist fight with the enemy.

Professional assassin Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) were being drugged by Ricky Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo) after he failed his job to kill Don Kim (Keone Young). He will need to keep his adrenaline running or else he will be kill by the drug . Chev head into his journey to make revenge toward Ricky Verona and his former employer, Carlito (Carlos Sanz) who also involved in poisoned him,while trying to stay alive by keeping himself pumped with adrenaline with various methods such as taking drugs and drives into a mall.

Crank is considered an action film mix with comedy traits. In the movie, Chev will have to keep his adrenaline flowing to survives from the poison. In order to do that, he performed some extreme act such as drives into a mall, killed someone using his gun while the owner's palm still attached on the weapon, and even public sex.The film was in very face pace throughout the whole avenge journey of Chev Chelios. Upbeat background music and quick cut editing were used to stimulate Chev's "high on adrenaline" condition.

As for the movie syntax, the movie uses the theme of good vs evil as their main theme. Chev had been the bad guy who killed people for his employer Carlito. He tried to be a good man by spared the life of Don Kim and its got himself into trouble. While he struggles to stay survives, he decided to revenge in his remaining time, he fights his way to kill Carlito and Ricky and ends up killing himself by falling from the helicopter.

The comedy traits can be recognized as the movie was a parody of the action film genre. The brilliant concept of "be an adrenaline junkie or die" and some of the action scene in the movie can be quite common in the action film genre, but Crank exaggerated it to make it even more absurd.

Reference

Nelmes, J. (1996). An Introduction to film studies. London: Routledge. 

Pisau Cukur (2009)

Pisau Cukur is a Malaysia comedy romantic mystery film established on 5th November 2009. The movie directed by Bernard Chauly and starring by Nur Fazura Sharifuddin, Maya Karin, Aaron Aziz and Eizlan Yusof.

In this week film review, I will discuss Pisau Cukur using the theory of male gaze. The idea of male gaze was introduced by Laura Mulvey in the article of Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. during 1975. The male gaze empowers man and objectified women as nothing more than a sexual pleasure. Women are portrayed in the stereotypical image, that female should be weak, ignorance and dependent on men. In male gaze, the audience will look at the female characters in heterosexual man's view, when a female character was introduced, the camera generically capturing a female character by focused on her breast, curves and back, telling audience she is sexy before they even know their name.

"Pisau Cukur", also meaning gold digger in Bahasa Melayu. Intan(Nur Fazura Sharifuddin) had been ambitious to marry a rich man since she was young. Her lover in the beginning of the movie, Datuk Salleh who is rich and married, promised her a vacation on a cruise but unable to make it because his wife is in the hospital. Intan decided to go on the cruise with her roommate Bella(Maya Karin), who is also a Pisau Cukur.

Intan was trying to introduce Bella to the rich man on the cruise, and they end up traveling together with the family of Datuk and Bella trying to grab Datuk's attention so she gets the chance to become his fourth wife. They soon found out that Datuk had been murdered on the cruise. Intan and Ari(Aaron Aziz), a detective is trying to investigate who is the murderer of Datuk. Intan is also trying to proof she is more than a pretty face and she can be smart too.

While the investigation going on, Bella is attracted to another rich, handsome guy Datuk Hashim(Eizlan Yusof). She started to use all her charm to attract Datuk Hashim in order to become his lover, and her admirer Faqir (Redza Minhat) offered his help to Bella.

Although the movie starts by showing how Intan and Bella are the typical gold diggers. They dress in the glamourous way, only think about marrying a rich man and didn't care to be a mistress or the fourth wife of an old man.

The film breaks these stereotype of women at the end of the movie. To prove herself is more than a pretty face, Intan volunteer to investigate the murder case. She decided to leave when Datuk Salleh blame her for not follow his order as she knows that she is an independent woman that do not need a man to tell her what to do. Bella didn't choose to continue her relationship with Datuk Hashim after she figured that she needs the love and caring from her husband more than his money. The movie is also showing the efforts they need to make to keep themselves "qualified" to become man's interest target.  

Reference

Mulvey, L. (2009). Visual and other pleasures. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jason Statham: The Last Action Hero

Jason Statham is a famous action film star. Born in Shirebrook, Derbyshire, he is always an athlete since childhood. He accepts physical training from his father, who was a boxer and gymnast.He played football and also share his passion in diving. He was a member of Britain's National Diving Squad and even compete in 1990 Commonwealth Game as a representative of England. He starts his career in modeling after being spotted by the agency of Sports Promotions. 

He played his first movie, Lock, Stock and Two Smocking Barrels during 1998, a crime comedy film by British director Guy Richie. It put Statham in the public eye and he continues to star in more action film including The Transporter series, Snatch, Crank, The One and much more. Due to his athlete-capability, he prefers to do his own stunt. ("People walk differently, people talk differently, and they fight differently" he explained his aversion to double in The Transporter DVD extra). He never took acting lesson yet he is able to build his star image through movie characters that he performed, a tough man with the deadliest skills, can do almost any action including car chasing and jumping from the balcony.

Rethinking star by Richard Dyer introduced "Structured polysemy" as a way to study stars.The star image appears to be multiple and gives out different but finite meanings. However, we must not forget that through the multiplicity of the star’s appearances in different  medias, the multiplicity also extends to changes in the star’s image over time.This gives rise to inconsistency and fluctuations, further suggesting that the appeal of star image is based on constant reinventions and dissolutions to contraries, embracing the opposing terms. 

The star existing in different categories there are "star as celebrity", "star as professional" and "star as performance" . Star as celebrity indicates someone whose fame is founded outside of their work and is known for their lifestyle.Star as professional is known for his/her work while the private life appears little to non-­existent. Star as performer is focusing on their work and the public domain of the star image. Private life is not their emphasis.

Through my observation, Jason Statham appeared to be in the category of star as profesional. In Jason Statham's acting career for more than a decade, the roles that he take part of were mostly action hero, he was able to do his own stunt performance and deliver realistic action scene. Even without the look of "all American men", his performance delivered a more modern, everyday man hero. He maintained stable identities as a tough action hero though his movie. Even when he take part in the comedy movie Spy, he played a chauvinistic English secret agent and make a parody of himself by bragging his absurd experience with a straight face. Jason Statham maintains his physical fitness through practicing a similar lifestyle as his on-screen image, he keeps track on his daily training and healthy diet so he can be faster and stronger. He is also a very private person, he kept his private life away from the camera very well.

Reference

1. Huber, C. (2016). Last Action Hero: Jason Statham Plays It Straight - Cinema Scope. Retrieved July 17, 2016, from http://cinema-scope.com/features/last-action-hero-jason-statham-plays-straight/ 
2. Rose, S. (2015). Jason Statham: 'Do I want to be the next James Bond? Absolutely' Retrieved July 17, 2016, from https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/01/jason-statham-i-want-to-be-the-next-james-bond