#61 of 2010: Hero

The colors and drama are formulated as arduously as you would expect in a film by Zhang Yimou, and it pays off. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung are, as always, beacons of emotional subtlety and masterful believability. Also, the CGI scenes worked: while highly (some might say preposterously) stylized, i found them tasteful and well-incorporated [as opposed to some of the tacky scenery in "Curse of the Golden Flower"]. Overall, an absolutely beautiful epic, a legendarily romanticized historical fiction that can hold the viewer's attention with spectacle alone, but that doesn't forget to tell a moving and somewhat didactic story.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_(2002_film)

#57 of 2010: days of being wild

i can see how these premises and characters grew into Wong Kar-Wai's later movies (it's "sequels", "in the mood for love" and "2046", but also the chronologically-nearer "chungking express"). the whole film has a "learning" feel- in the content, people learn about how other people work, learn to move on, learn secrets, travel and learn new trades; through the visuals, the viewer must learn to translate darkness and the small, fragmented plains of faces or furniture or clothes that catch the light; after seeing the later films in the sequence, it is clear that the director is learning how to build and where to block characters, when they should enter and exit for greatest raw effect (rather than greatest/clearest contribution to narrative), and besides that, he is working for the first time with Christopher Doyle, no doubt entering into a relationship in which both parties learned from each other. if you haven't seen any Wong Kar-Wai, maybe start here and watch the "trilogy".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Days_of_being_wild