3 ms·
This happened to me after awhile, so I literally shifted to watching movies from a different culture. It’s all the same tropes, but delivered differently from a
by runawaybottle 6y ago
This happened to me after awhile, so I literally shifted to watching movies from a different culture. It’s all the same tropes, but delivered differently from a different cultural lens.
Ip-Man 4 is just a hilarious version of Chinese exceptionalism (as opposed to American exceptionalism ((hilarious as in woah this how ridiculous our version of exceptionalism must look like to everyone else))), if you’re looking for an English movie to get an idea of what I’m talking about.
90s Bollywood is great if you want to see how equally ridiculous Indian version of romance/marriage is idealized (as opposed how Americans idealize/romanticize their conception of guy-gets-girl).
The things they do really well are often pretty unique if you’re not familiar with their tropes. It’s very snobby and meta, but I can’t watch American movies anymore without getting bored.
- vidarh 6y agoIf you want Chinese exceptionalism, watch Wolf Warrior 2. I watched it in a theatre in London full of Chinese people, and it was a surreal experience, because to me it felt like watching a Chinese version of Hot Shots or similar crazy parody, but nobody in the cinema were laughing. I really enjoyed the movie, but it also shows Chinese filmmaking reaching the level of over the top patriotism you saw in 1980's US war movies. American studios eventually turned to mocking that, as in the aforementioned Hot Shots movies and others. I wonder when we get to see the same mocking of Ip-Man and Wolf Warrior by Chinese movies.
- billfruit 6y agoAnother good choice in similar vein is the Soviet MosFilm classics, essentially many of the same themes and tropes but seen through an entirely opposite cultural lens. I just watched 'Assa' couple of months ago, it is almost like a soviet version of 'Blood Simple', sort, and every minute of it was engaging.