The Banquet

Perfect. It was a movie that I could not comprehend the details that was involved in making the movie. Some say its a Chinese interpretation of Hamlet. A Shakespearean story which I have yet to read or hear about. It was simply beautiful. The videography was outstanding. The detail in the camera angle and camera skill. One of my machas notice the opening scene whereby the empress walk into a hallway. If you notice that the focus of the camera is not only on the object which is the empress walking but also the background as well. There would always be a focus when taking a shot. However, the focus seem to be focus on both. Our assumption would be there were two camera shooting the same scene in order to give that 3D perspective to it or the graphic was really good.

I was impressed with the set and also the colour involve that brought to the audience a relialistic rendition of what is believe to be Shakespeare with a local touch considering Empress Dowager did exist. Scenes are not overmade that would give the audience a sense of fakeness. It was simply breathtaking to see the sword play which did not seem to be martial arts but a dance instead. It is simply not easy to get such a perfect shot unless this is taken on countless takes.

The story was also tight with poetic sentences providing a deep meaning to what was being said. The lines were not many but when spoken, brought about such deep philosophy. This is coming from a person who knows no Mandarin but was reading subtitles. The subtitle was spot on. Even my Chinese speaking friend was reading the subtitle as the Mandarin that were used were old Mandarin that at times may be hard to comprehend considering the poetic lingua to it.

I could say that this has to be one of my most perfect movie this year. Some may say that Hero is better. I do admit the swordplay in Hero is far more better but to watch an allrounded movie is rare whereby each detail of the movie is displayed so well that I was dumbfounded. Note that this is coming from a person with no expectation whatsoever of the movie and I believe this is the best attitude in watching any movie. Money worth I can say. If you're free, catch the movie. If you feel the same as I did, leave me a comment to justify that my taste in movies ain't that bad. Some eye candy trailers to get you started.