Tag Archive: China


TAKING A KUNG FU KIP

Filed under: Italy, Movies — 1 Comment
October 4, 2013

THE GRANDMASTER directed by Wong Kar-wai (Hong Kong /China 2013)

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Grandmaster splash

This Kung Fu bio-pic is sumptuous and stylish but also soporific. It has numerous set piece fight sequences that kept me awake but I nodded off several times during the quiet bits.

It apparently took three years to make which you can well believe looking at the lavish detail but it’s a pity that the director didn’t take the trouble to put together a coherent narrative. Plot-wise it’s all over the place.

When I watch movies dubbed into Italian I always miss some elements in the story but here I was all at sea right from the start.

The grandmaster of the title is Ip Man played elegantly by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai whose most famous martial arts student was Bruce Lee. The synopsis tells viewers that it follows events in his life from the 1930s to the end of his life in 1972 but his death is off-screen and, even more confusingly Lee isn’t part of the story at all.

Kung Fu fans will probably love it but for me it was one of those frustrating films where there’s less to it than meets the eye.

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CALIGINE : FOLK RAMBLINGS WITH FUZZY GUITARS

Filed under: Italy, Movies, Music — Leave a comment
January 21, 2013

Caligine’s Anomia Mediterranea

Caligine is, to all intents and purposes, the brainchild of one man although,as Gabriele de Seta loves playing with other people, he prefers to define the project more as a collective than a solo act. He’s an Italian who, for the past two years, has mainly divided his time between the Netherlands and China.

Having begun in 2007 by experimenting with harsh noise and found sounds on two volumes entitled Minimalia, Caligine’s new album Anomia Mediterranea is a more luminous and melodic collection of contaminated folk music.

The title track has spoken words (in Italian) that are all but drowned out by insistent drones and there’s even a brief hint of Carmina Burana in there if you listen carefully. These inserts make the musical journey so much more interesting, it’s as if each track begins with the intention of taking a direct line from A to B, then gets drawn to a sound or idea that lies a little off the beaten track.

The longest piece on the album, all 12 minutes and 26 seconds worth, is entitled ‘Cani di Paglia Divorano Tigri di Cartapesta’ which roughly translates as ‘straw dogs devour paper maché tigers’. This surreal ,even faintly savage, imagery belies the lyricism of the instrumental track where a rustic acoustic guitar has elements of Jack Rose’s work with Pelt in which traditional folk becomes gradually corroded by complimentary elements.

Other tracks make me think of Czech poet-musician Vladimir Vaclavek, self-styled neo-folk guru David Tibet and Six Organs of Admittance’s Ben Chasny. In addition, a brief piece of improvised acoustic guitar (Blitris) sounds like an homage to Derek Bailey. Continue reading →

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