Alone with Crossing Over...

Again, i found myself alone in the house on a Sunday afternoon. I felt too lazy to go somewhere else so i decided to scrounge some DVDs from Wesa's stock.

I found this movie, Crossing Over, starring Harrison Ford as an immigration agent running after Mexican illegal immigrants.

The film deals with the border, document fraud, the asylum and green card process, work-site enforcement, naturalization, the office of counter terrorism and the clash of cultures.
from: Wikipedia

The movie highlights the lives of different nationalities struggling to get the much-coveted US green card.

There's the Mexican woman named Meriya (Alice Braga), who entered the US illegally with his young son.

Two Australian sweethearts with diverse interest of wanting to stay in the US. The guy (Jim Sturgess) was attempting to pass himself off as young rabbi. His Jewish friends taught him Hebrew prayers that he may use during the interview. He also involved his Mom in Australia to get "some papers" showing he got a Bar Mitzvah and went to Hebrew synagogue.

The girl (Alice Eve) was an aspiring actress and tried a shortcut by getting in bed with an immigration application adjudicator (Ray Liotta), whose wife (Ashley Judd) happens to be an immigration lawyer (pro-bono).

A Bangladeshi girl born in the US but her family is yet to get green cards who got enamored with Islamic extremism and caught the attention of Homeland security after she defended the 9/11 attackers in a class presentation.

A Korean boy and his family on the verged of getting naturalized but got involved with robbery turned bloody after his cohorts killed the Korean owner,

An Iranian-born immigration agent (Cliff Curtis, Ford's partner) belonging to an ultra- conservative family. His rebellious and liberal sister (Melody Khazae) was a considered a dishonor to their family and was killed by another brother (Merik Tadros) in a "family honor" killing. In the movie version, this "honor killing" was omitted. But in the DVD i saw, it was restored.

The climax of the movie was when the Iranian girl was killed by the younger brother , but it was Curtis that Ford suspected as the one who did it.

Distraught, Curtis went to a Korean store, and while inside, a group of hooded Korean youths stormed the store for a robbery. Along the way, the owner was shot and killed. Curtis engaged the youth in a gunbattle and killed all of them, except one young Korean (Justin Chon) who was about to be naturalized the next day. Curtis spared him his life and told him to go.

Ford receive a call from an immigration patrol who found the body of Meriya abandoned in the border. He went to Mexico to personally break the news of Meriya's death.

The Bangladeshi girl (Jaysha Patel) was deemed a future threat and was deported by Homeland security.

The Australian girl was arrested by immigration agents for having gotten his green card a bit too fast.

The Australian guy got a help from an old rabbi during the immigration interview, and eventually got his green card -- and a Jewish girlfriend.

Here's a review from John Hartl of Seattletimes.com:

The writer-director, Wayne Kramer, earned some fans for his 2003 sleeper, "The Cooler," which earned an Oscar nomination for Alec Baldwin. He's certainly good with actors, but he tends to push the big tear-jerker moments.

Kramer is also fond of swooping aerial shots that emphasize the boxy buildings and detention centers that litter the California landscape and trap his characters. He seems to be saying that they can't win in this environment, whether they're as world-weary as Brogan or as cynical as the actress who all but volunteers to prostitute herself.

But (spoiler alert) the movie does hold out some hope for people who luck out and/or won't let the system drag them down. As a result, the doom-laden visual scheme begins to seem inappropriate and a tad pretentious.

Next: DVD - The Red Cliff

Lost in Beijing, lost in translation..

It's Thursday evening and i've got nothing to do, and nowhere to go. After two hours on the net, i finally got tired. So i went to the sala to watch DVD movies.

Already, my two Indonesian housemates were watching a very unusual movie, titled "Lost in Beijing"... This DVD was brought over from Jakarta since last year by another colleague. I thought this was about the Beijing Olympics, so I never attempted to watch it.

Since my two housemates were so engrossed with the movie, i decided to 'sit-in' with them.

To my dismay, the movie was in Chinese.... And the subtitle was in Bahasa Indonesia.

I was just trying to figure ou the story and asking my housemate, once in awhile, what is going n in the screen.

Though i can understand only a few Bahasa words and phrases, i was able to finish the movie with them.

I thought is was an "indie" movie. Shot with a single camera, 8mm i guess. Shots were crude and in some instances, blurry. The fnny thing is the obvious one-camera use with the frequent panning between two actors talking, without a break in the shot.

Anyway, i have to go to my friend Wiki to get an understanding what what was the whole story about:

Liu Pingguo (Fan Bingbing) and her husband, An Kun (Tong Dawei) are a young migrant couple from the northeast of China who have moved to Beijing for a better life. Pingguo and An Kun live in a dilapidated apartment eking out their existence working menial jobs. An Kun works as a window washer, while his wife works in the Golden Basin Massage Parlor as a foot masseuse. Golden Basin is owned and operated by Lin Dong (Tony Leung Ka Fai), an unabashed womanizer, and himself from Guangdong Province. His wife, Wang Mei (Elaine Jin) practices Chinese medicine. Very soon, the two couples find themselves headed for a
collision course.

When Pingguo's best friend, Xiao Mei (Zeng Meihuizi), assaults a customer, she is quickly fired by Lin Dong. Pingguo, wishing to commiserate, takes her friend out and promptly becomes drunk on bai jiu. Returning to the Golden Basin, she passes out in an empty office. Lin Dong, seeing the vulnerable Pingguo attempts to make a pass, which quickly turns into rape, a rape witnessed by the window washer, An Kun. Furious at the sight, An Kun begins a campaign of harassment against Lin Dong, defacing his Mercedes Benz, and attempting to blackmail him for ¥20,000. When Lin Dong ignores the furious husband, An Kun goes directly to Wang Mei, who rather than acquiescing, seduces the naive window washer.

Soon, it is discovered that Liu Pingguo is pregnant, though neither An Kun nor Lin Dong can be certain of who is the father. Lin Dong, however, sees in Pingguo an opportunity to make things right with his barren wife as well as to settle things with Pingguo and her husband once and for all. Soon, the two husbands have concocted a scheme wherein An Kun initially receives ¥20,000 for his mental suffering. If the child has Lin Dong's bloodtype, he will go home with the massage-parlor owner and An Kun will receive ¥100,000. If however, the baby is An Kun's, no money is exchanged, but Pingguo and An Kun keep the baby.

Moreover, if Lin Dong again sleeps with Pingguo, half of his assets will go to Wang Mei in a divorce proceeding. During these negotiations, Pingguo remains conspicuously silent.

As the baby is carried to term, Lin Dong becomes more and more attached to the idea that he will at last be a father. When the baby is born however, An Kun discovers that it is indeed his child. Unable to turn down the money, he manages to convince Lin Dong that it is his son, allowing him to collect the ¥120,000. Although, seeing how happy Lin Dong is with the baby, An Kun grows increasingly jealous, at last resorting to a clumsy and ultimately doomed kidnapping.

After being released (presumably by Wang Mei, who has decided to divorce her husband), An Kun attempts to "repurchase" his child, to which Lin Dong promptly refuses. Pingguo, who had moved into Lin Dong's home after the birth as a nursemaid, at last has had enough. Quietly, she gathers the money that An Kun had returned, and taking her child, walks out the door. The film then ends as the two men, Lin Dong and An Kun, attempt to search for her, only to have their car break down on a busy Beijing highway...

One of the amusing aspect of this movie is its depiction of sex and nudity. Reports said that Chinese censors ordered 15 cuts to the film before being shown domestically. But it seems that our copy is a sort of "Director's Cut" copy.

I almost choked (i was eating 'suya' barbecue while watching) watching the rape scene between Lin Dong and Pingguo, and the sex scene between the young couple. Also, the bed scene between An kun and Wang Mei (Lin Dong's wife). I thought for awhile i was watching a soft porn movie.

One might see it was a "risque" indie film, and very rare for a Chinese-made movie.

While the camera works (cinematography) is erratic and blurry, but the story was kind of tightl woven. Also, to kill time, there's plenty of skyline or horizon shots which served as 'fillers'...

Overall, even if I didn't understand the conversation, i surely understood the storyline.

Ah, to be young and ignorant in the city. And to be taken advantage...

Sounds very familiar. Specially to our female OFWs to Arab countries....