Parking (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Hong Kong Version) DVD Region 3
Chang Chen (Actor)
| Guey Lun Mei (Actor)
| Chapman To (Actor)
| Leon Dai (Actor)
This product is temporarily out of stock
Related promotions:
Important information about purchasing this product:
- This product is accepted for return under certain conditions. For more details, please refer to our return policy.
Customer Review of "Parking (DVD) (English Subtitled) (Hong Kong Version)"
Average Customer Rating for this Edition:
(2)
Page:
1
Kevin Kennedy
See all my reviews
January 25, 2011
See all my reviews
January 25, 2011
1 people found the following helpful
Don Quixote in Taipei's underworld
Don Quixote in Taipei's underworld
|
Arthouse indie film "Parking", in the style of Griffin Dunne's "After Hours", tells of one long, horrifying evening in the life of an everyman. Office worker Chen Mo (Chang Chen) and his bride of four years have been trying without luck to have a baby. Their doctor offers the absurd diagnosis that his sperm and her eggs are repelling each other. The failure to reproduce has put the marriage under great stress, but the couple has reconciled and plan to try again to get preggers. To celebrate their new re-commitment, Chen Mo stops to buy a cake and some sweets. When he returns to his car, he finds that a double-parked car has blocked his egress. Chen goes in search of the owner of the double-parked car ... and so begins his nightmarish journey amongst Taipei's seamy underbelly of dolts, scoundrels, losers, and victims. While leavened with occasional humor, "Parking" offers a much bleaker vision than did "After Hours". The tawdry lives with which Chen Mo intersects are depicted in hyperrealism, with the violence and evil not presented in a cartoonish fashion, but in almost documentary style. While the film does not include nudity, it contains two very degrading sexual encounters. However, the bleakness never overcomes the expectation that in the end things will turn out all right for our tarnished hero. Chang Chen is riveting as the knight errant central character. Chapman To as a hapless debt-ridden tailor, Peggy Tseng as an abused mainland prostitute, Leon Dai as her vile pimp, and Jack Gao as a gangster-turned-barber all make strong impressions. And the film ends with a surprisingly upbeat solution to the problems of Chen Mo and his bride. "Parking" is unevenly paced, but offers compelling viewing for a mature audience. |
Did you find this review helpful?
Yes
(Report This)
numinair
See all my reviews
June 2, 2009
See all my reviews
June 2, 2009
1 people found the following helpful
Trapped From Life Motion
Trapped From Life Motion
|
I watched this after seeing “The Equation of Love and Death” DVD. I say this as I found connected aspects with both films; cars and ‘motion’, separated lovers, white lies and letters, drugs and prostitution, bumbling stooges, and probably things my brain cannot see without watching both again more intensely. Chung Mong-Hong’s “Parking” is partially a none linear expressionist film, with a bit of Velvet Underground resonance. The plot is more complex of the two movies, having a simple premise but with multifaceted and connected ‘apartment’ situations that reveal deeper truths about Chen Mo’s random parking situation. Chen Mo decides on Mother’s Day to meet up with his estranged wife in Taipei, so stops at a cake shop below an apartment block to buy a cake, to help make amends at their meeting. But Chen Mo’s car gets trapped by a double-parked car with a bullet shot windscreen outside the shop. A helpful one armed barber shop owner informs Chen Mo that the driver lives on the third floor of the block. But searching for the car owner, Chen Mo only finds himself immersed ever deeply into the dark social cruelties that surround the apartments, which seem to mirror his own reality. Amidst his search Chen Mo meets an elderly couple who believe him to be their son and a little girl his daughter, a prostitute from the mainland whose trying to escape an oppressive pimp, and a gangster harassed suit tailor (Chapman To). The cinematography and settings are quite theatrical; the apartment scenes having a filmic stage show look. Surreal lens filtering also makes for some dreamy angles as if the whole experience is one big unusual dream. But the ‘arty’ aspects don’t overwhelm crucial plot development. Acting is excellent, Chang Chen gritty amidst the blend of moody humor and mean streets and Lun Mei Guey looking utterly transformed from her innocent “Secret” part. A film about the state of money over real life, living concerns and survival, marriage and compatibilities, sex and depravity and the inevitable results of what can happen when things slip into a sleazy declining environment. Its a slide show cinema of ‘outsiders’, in characterization, time and linearity, and suggest much more than it seems. It’s certainly funny though in a droll manner, like when Chen Ho sits on his cake by accident and cleans his trousers in a washroom where a fish head is soaking in a sink, and black comedy dialogue. An excellent film but needs extra considerations. |
Did you find this review helpful?
Yes
(Report This)
Page:
1
