Jul. 27, 2003 - 9:41 pm
it looks like i'm giving everything a 7/10 rating this week. oh well, if that's what it deserves, that's what it deserves. this was the second film that i picked up at Hollywood Video yesterday while on my Luc Besson kick. this is another one that he recently wrote and produced. luckily this one does have music by Eric Serra. and it shows.
i was reminded a lot of The Fifth Element (1997) while watching this. it's about a very strong and witty police officer who can pretty much take care of anything. Jean Reno learns that his long lost love has recently died in Japan and he goes to see her cremation. while there, he discovers that he and she actually have a 20-year-old daughter and he has to take care of her for the next two days until she comes of age, turning 20. it soon becomes apparent that her mother had been involved in something she shouldn't have though, and the Japanese Yakuza mafia are after the father and daughter.
Keith and i watched it over at his place. we agreed that it was a "cute" film, but nothing amazing. it was pretty good. the daughter in this is quite screwy. you know how you sometimes get the feeling that Japanese people (when they're in their homeland) are really trendy and colorful and just all-around nutty? that's this girl to a tee. she's always making little noises, talking fast, wearing bright colorful clothes, and jumping up and down. nutty little girl. but extremely attractive.
i also found it weird to see so many Japanese people knowing how to speak French in this. all over Tokyo people speak French. is this really true? don't you love our little American bubble? it's so hard to break out sometimes.
so i was telling Keith how these films seem to do similar sorts of things to all of those past Luc Besson-directed films. like lots of fish-eye lens cinematography in this one. i double checked and no, it's not the same cinematographer. but maybe Luc Besson gets to pick the people for all the posts. i'm really not sure how all that is working out for him. i'm still after many years trying to grasp what all sorts of control a regular producer can have in a film. i would think he gets to pick a lot of the crew, but i'm not completely sure.