Films: I Come with the rain

[alexandral]

Story: Following from his break-down after the arrest of a serial killer, former police office Klein is employed to find the disappeared son of a US billionaire.



This is a strange film, worthy of watching but flawed. It touches on some rarely explored themes - deep connection between religious faith and suffering and interpretation of Christianity in Eastern countries. Another interesting aspect is slice-an-dice approach to the narrative sequence that resonates with the serial killer part of the story and soundtrack by Radiohead. Beautiful camera work and excellent performances from two of the biggest Asian stars (Kimura Takuya and Lee Byun Hun) create an atmosphere of art-house movie.

Some of the more noticeable flaws:
-Serial killer stories are very much overdone these days. Serial killers here, serial killers there, serial killers everywhere.

-Overload with Christian imagery. Yes, Christian mythology is one of the themes of the film, but still – crosses of all shapes and forms cropping up in every single frame of the film are a bit too much.

- Kimura Takuya's poor English. He is supposed to be a person who grew up in US but his English is probably the worst in the film. It is barely intelligible. I wish they dubbed his parts with another actor as his otherwise excellent performance loses some of it's credibility over something not very significant.

There also was a big shallow part in all this.

Comments

[trailer-spot.livejournal.com]

When I heard about the movie I was curious about it. I found it interesting that a US "star" plays in a predominantly Asian production (at the same time as Gary Oldman plays in "Rain Fall"). But what I've seen and read about it in the last few weeks lead me to put the movie on the "it's not urgent, I'll watch it eventually when it shows up in a year or two on TV" list. :)

I'm starting to worry a little about your constant focus on manflesh. At least this time the guy(s) in question are over 18. ;)

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I imagine this film to be quite a good one to watch on the big screen - there were some really amazing scenes and very clever usage of Hong Kong landscapes. I haven't wrote much about Josh Hartnett's performance in the post , sorry - it was very good. He is one of the actors who can play break-down really really well (tangentially reminding me of Sam Roswell's performance in "Moon").

[trailer-spot.livejournal.com]

I've so far postponed watching "Moon" using other sources since I was always hoping it will at one point be released theatrically here. But it looks increasingly unlikely that it will happen.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

You must watch it. :D One of the things you might like there - I remember you preferring well-made models to the usual use of CGI.

I loved "Moon", in a big and serious way. I must post about it one day, but I have seen few films I really liked and haven't had time to post about ("Memories of murder" and "Mother" being among them).

[sandrulka.livejournal.com]

Well after wathching yout thread I'm curious to see this movie especially that I like Kimura Takuya and Lee Byun Hun.
When I see it I'll tell you what I think about it and hope my flaws will be different:)

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

This is one of the great strengths of the film - it definitely provokes much thinking and variety of interpretations!

I would be interested to know what you'll think. I can't stop mulling over different aspects of the film.

[lage-nom-ai.livejournal.com]

*enjoys the shallowness*

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

He is a very good actor , you know. :D One of the best in Asia.

[miss-dian.livejournal.com]

Heeee... I am curious to hear Kimura's Engrish :D

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

His English is not as bad as sometimes we hear in doramas - but still, it really noticeable that NO way he could have been brought up in US.

[rika-66.livejournal.com]

he could have been brought up in US.

But "Rain" is not a realistic story, ne? This is a philosophic parable based on the Christ story. So do you think the Father and the Son in this film are a really what it was told to Klain? REALLY American billionaire and his boy who was brought up in the US? By the way did you notice that the Father in film has NO accent at all, he speaks ideal English, which is also against realistic approach. Shitao's father was born and raised in Hong-Kong, he has to have an accent. But he has no... and Klain (and us) never see Father's face, only his splendid, ringing voice.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

By the way did you notice that the Father in film has NO accent at all, he speaks ideal English, which is also against realistic approach. Shitao's father was born and raised in Hong-Kong, he has to have an accent.

The father has an accent, I am surprised you didn't realise it. Just a soft accent, enough for someone who has been in USA for many many years.

Also Hong Kong's official language is English (as well as Cantonese , see this article: фициальными языками территории являются китайский (без указания конкретной разновидности) и английский. Согласно переписи населения 1996 года, 3,1% жителей Гонконга назвали английский языком повседневного общения, 34,9% назвали английский вторым языком. , http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B3) so they all speak very good English, for example Lee Byun Hun's character and the Chinese cop speak much better English than Takuya .

Yes, the film is a parable, but the main premises are the main premises! As I said, I don't think it is a significant thing, but still a little inconsistency is inconsistency that reflects on Takuya's performance.

[rika-66.livejournal.com]

The father has an accent
Honeslty, I hear no accent. But OK, my own English is as poor as Kimura's. :) So I only have to believe you in this matter. :):)

[itshelene.livejournal.com]

I've resisted downloading the movie so far because I've pre-ordered it from YesAsia, but because of your first(3) pic(s) I think I have to go download it now. He is so seriously hot. *_*

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

he is. I am going to watch "IRIS" now that YAB is over - Lee BYUn Hun is soo great!

[syliasyliasylia.livejournal.com]

My best friend and me were looking forward to watching this movie, then she watched it and hated most of the movie (that is to say, evey scene involving Josh Harnett and Elias Koteas). Now I do not dare to watch it, *sigh* GeekyBF is going to hate it, since this is not his type of movies, so first I have to find the time to watch it by myself and feel like doing it! LOL

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

My best friend and me were looking forward to watching this movie, then she watched it and hated most of the movie (that is to say, evey scene involving Josh Harnett and Elias Koteas).

You see, this was the main minus for me too - serial killer story didn't seem that relevant to the rest of the story. Yes, it served as means to show that "the world is an evil place" and that Klein needed help desperately, but I think there could have been more believable means to do so.

[hyperhippot.livejournal.com]

Argh, I was SO dissappointed by this film, LBH proved to be the best actor in it IMO (BTW I knew some of those caps under the cut should be from the hammering scene, wow, psycho who? lol, yet awesome shirtlessness). If only they had built the current plot more instead of the Josh past plot, that imo was pretty unrelevant, at least to get so many screen time... ah, I could go on and on for hours, please make me stop, I'm glad you enjoyed it even if I couldn't, the camera work was indeed beautiful.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

That serial killer story was one of the main minuses for me too ! At some point it felt as is the creators are enjoying showing all the human body sculptures - I rarely get this feeling! I liked LBH's psycho - he managed really well to present a "psycho with a human face". :D

[hyperhippot.livejournal.com]

Exactly my feelings about it, somehow it was just freakish and gratuitious without reason, they could have sent the mesage developing the current storyline and characters and it would have touched base instead of being a kind of an overview. LBH character was the best of the movie, so believable as the psycho "in love", or his understanding of love anyway, subtle at times, visceral and bloothirsty at other times, I'd wish they could have made the same with Kimutaku's character who had such potential but was totally underdeveloped because someone was enamoured of some freakish human body sculptures.

BTW, LBH, I've just watched Iris episode 4 and you MUST watch it asap, it's getting better and better OMG!

[rika-66.livejournal.com]

I'd like to shorten a bit scenes with serial killer, too. :)
But honestly I don't think Shitao's character in the film needs more development. IMHO it's enough as it is. Shitao is not an ordinary human being. May be he can not named human being at all. He shall have mystery and understatement in him. More bio details,logical explanations and developments would kill the poetry of this image. He is a miracle alive. Miracles and divinity do not need and have logical explanations.

[hyperhippot.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wasn't talking about logical explanations or a bio per se, I just wish they would have developed him more deeply at least to make me empathise with him, to care for him, but somehow I got a better approach to the mind/heart/feelings of a character that has nothing to do with the movie than to the character that happens to be jesus redux, in my opinion his point of view would be interesting, at least as much as the other two main characters, I see your point about the mistery of his image though.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

I'd wish they could have made the same with Kimutaku's character who had such potential but was totally underdeveloped because someone was enamoured of some freakish human body sculptures.

yes, I wish we got to see a bit more of Takuya, although I think that the fact that we didn't see to much of him fits with the story , after all it is all about "looking for Shitao".

BTW, LBH, I've just watched Iris episode 4 and you MUST watch it asap, it's getting better and better OMG!

I am going to do this today! I must!

[mnemo-syne.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. I liked the style and look of it very much, thought Josh and Byung Hun were very good - the emotion in Byung Hun's eyes, I totally believed that he really loved her! He's so good at that. And at wearing his pants really low...*cough*
But um. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me at all. Glad I watched it, wouldn't watch again.

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

And at wearing his pants really low...*cough*

This was a good additional bonus. :D

But um. It didn't make a whole lot of sense to me at all. Glad I watched it, wouldn't watch again.

I have been helping with doing subtitles for the film - hmm, I have noticed some more little inconsistencies.