Taxi (1998)

I specify that this is Taxi (1998) because the Americans did remake it in 2004. Therefore this film (unlike the ones before I'm guessing) you may have actually heard of! An action-comedy the plot is as follows...

Daniel, ex pizza delivery boy now starts a new career as a taxi driver with racer tendencies in the extreme. Daniel decides to break the road laws when a rather incompetent police officer called Emilien was his fare. With Emilien failing in a rather high profile case involving some fast moving robbers he decides to blackmail Daniel into assisting him to catch them. High speed chases and comedy eschews. I give it a 4/5.

Tried to supply a trailer again and failed to find one with English subtitles...

Bon Cop, Bad Cop

   

Another comedy, this time of the Canadian variety. A black humour crime comedy where a French speaking Quebec cop and an English speaking Ontario cop with very different views of the world end of working together on a puzzling case when a body ends up on the dividing sign between their provinces.

 

I don't want to spoil the twists and turns here, just want to say I found myself laughing out loud frequently. I don't know where I found the trailer but after I felt I must find a copy and I'm glad I did. I recommend to everyone. 5/5.

 

Couldn't find a English subtitled trailer I'm afraid but you can get the gist.

Hello Ghost

This film I started watching on a Korean Air flight when I visited Seoul. The flight ended before the film did hence I ended up buying a copy for which I ended up very happy to have.

Another comedy (I promise I do watch things other than comedies). You wouldn't think it was a comedy though from the opening as a man is attempting to commit suicide. This is a comedy with ultimate life lessons and heart-warming at the end. Again I'll try to be spoiler free. Let me just sum up the film as a suicidal man starts seeing ghosts who start demanding he fulfil their wishes before moving on. In the process of fulfilling these requests he comes out of his shell and starts interacting with the world again.

Afraid I couldn't find the trailer with English subtitles...

this may be a recurring problem.

What We Do In The Shadows

When you think of New Zealand and films you probably think of Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Sweeping New Zealand landscapes as a backdrop of a fantastical story. What We Do In The Shadows is fantasy without the sweeping backdrops of mountains. This is a fake documentary about vampires sharing a house in Wellington, where they go out around town (not the hills) dressed about 100 years out of fashion trying to get bouncers to invite them into clubs.

This comedy starts with four vampires in a house ranging from 183 to 8000+ on the lead up to the annual Undead Masquerade for the zombies, witches and vampires of Wellington - no werewolves invited! As a comedy it made me slightly cringe but a good way. It was interesting to watch but I'll make it sound as dull as dishwater. In fact the opening 10 minutes is just about the complete lack of washing up as the chore rota is ever a house sharing problem - especially for vampires as the blood starts congealing. These vampire men deal with their relationship issues whilst evading the law as stupidity, their loud hunting, a sunlight accident starting a fire and a body in the basement makes things difficult.

To sum it up I wasn't sure about this film but overall it is very watchable. It seems to have good reviews but perhaps it just wasn't my kind of comedy? Which was a shame since Flight of the Conchords was involved and I've loved what I've seen of their work. 3/5 Stars.

The Beginning...

I'm having a film night and I'm finding that so much of what I watch is mass produced and from the U.S.A. Disney - check! Generic action film - check! and so on and so on. So, I've decided to watch films from at least 30 different countries by the time I'm 30. So, to motivate myself I'm writing this blog - yes yet another blog flung out onto the internet that probably no one will read. Never mind.

Here I'll record some of the interesting films I've come across from around the world. This will exclude U.S. films for reasons explained above. British films will occasionally feature but since I'm British I feel it is slightly cheating...

So - sit back and look forward to being introduced to a strange comedy vampire documentary from New Zealand, super freaky Korean horror and comedy, heart-warming Japanese films with feminist touches, Chinese action, German thriller, French "WTF just happened" and a historic apparently lesbian Swedish Queen buried in the Vatican. This is what I've just seen so far but I've promised myself to watch films from at least 30 different countries by 30 that gives me two and a bit years, so who knows what else I might find!

If by some chance someone ever decides to read this blog feel free to fling suggestions my way.