I must be the last to realise that Korean cinema is simply the freshest, most exciting and challenging cinema being made anywhere today. "Tell Me Something" illustrates beautifully some of the ways in which this is true. Starting with the time-honoured police thriller format, the way in which the drama plays out couldn't be more different from your average excellent but formulaic episode of "The Closer" or "Without a Trace"; as in much Korean cinema, the presumption of intelligence in the viewer means that far from being walked through every plot point, you tread the lonely road of clues and suspicion by yourself. Doubtless other viewers will predict the plot points with superhuman speed...still, I enjoy the spectacle even when I'm mystified.

It feels as though the director has gorged himself on the full gamut of cinema, taking in not only his own cinema but glossy but predictable Hollywood and glorious, violent Japanese cinema. There's nothing more refreshing than to see a structure you recognise, used to portray a world you don't. It gives new life to any old, tired story or scenario  better still when it's harsh and good-looking and violent and surprising, like this. Here's a very brief run-down: an artist's daughter, some lovers, some murders, dismemberment. Your guide through this murky world is Detective Cho (Suk-kyu Han), who stumbles along the policeman's dirty path, labouring under suspicion and dishonour. You learn that his impassive taciturnity conceals more complex emotions, and you accompany him as he unpicks a messy, bloody and tangled knot of relationships and lies, seeking redemption along the way.

It's romantic at heart. Detective Cho reminds me of Dana Andrews' terse, detached detective McPherson, in Otto Preminger's haunting "Laura" of 1944. That tough character finds himself lifted by the aura created by the eponymous central character of Laura into an unfamiliar realm, falling in love with her as he begins to know her. The comparison ends there  "Tell Me Something" has a finale that suits very modern tastes. I'm knee deep in Dashiell Hammett at the moment, but this is really more James Ellroy territory. It's a bit gory for my taste, but not strictly speaking gratuitous, I think. Even if it were, it would still be engrossing and disturbing, crafted with care and with a fantastic soundtrack.

For more Korean excellence try gripping thriller "Memories of Murder" or the exquisitely turned "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...and Spring". For other non-US excellence go for French TV policier "Engrenages" and Takeshi Kitano's unique Japanese gangster flick "Sonatine".


I watched the Korean film Tell Me Something last night and i thought it was an excellent film. The film starts of in In Seoul, where there are body parts found which do not match with the severed copses of three men that are found. They have been in cars and bags and public spaces around the city. Detective Cho, is under investigation of the discovery and is assigned to lead the investigation with his team. When the true identities of the men are discovered, the police finds that the artist Su-Yeon Chae, who lives with her friend Seungmin Oh, was a former lover of each of the men that have died. Detective Cho and his police force follows the leads on the information Su-Yeon tells them. I thought that this was a very good film which kept you gripped throughout. 7/10


OK, OK I'll tell you. Pretentious. Predictable. Preposterous. Exhibit A: cop finds out his pretty but sulky witness has attempted suicide several times, turns around and leaves her alone in his flat with his one and only gun, then goes after a serial killer without any weapon, gets mauled in the process, survives the ordeal, chases the killer a second time, this time still without any weapon... And just when you think it can't get any dumber than this, well, that's exhibit A, and as Picard puts it, "Plenty of letters left in in the alphabet"

A thinking person's movie? I suppose it could be. I suspect a lot of people who spend their working hours thinking actually like to switch off their brains when they come home after a hard thinking day's work.


As I watched this film, I kept asking myself: What's the killer's motivation(s)? Not until the last few minutes did that become clear  well, as clear as it could be, given the narrative structure: reminiscent of the plot of Se7en (1995) but with the addition of a number of flashbacks that do more to confuse than to wholly satisfy.

And, there are obvious nods to not only Se7en, but Silence of the lambs (1991), also, particularly the cinematography and scene construction. At one point, echoing a scene from the former, Detective Cho (Suh-kyu Han) is lying exhausted in a rain-soaked alley way, while the killer sits waiting in his car, only two metres away; but instead of running Cho down, the killer screams away into the rain. In another scene, Cho is in an elevator and looks up to see bright blood dripping from the hatchway, and then also dripping down the wall; suddenly, the hatch breaks and buckets of blood cascade onto him. Add to that are the many interior scenes in run-down tenements and so forth, all evocative of the spooky corridors of those earlier films.

Still, the story is interesting, in a macabre way: across Seoul, body parts turn up in black plastic bags, but not all parts belong to the body. Somebody is perpetrating murder piecemeal. Enter Detective Cho, somewhat under suspicion for corruption but handed the case as way to redeem his career. More mixed-up body parts are discovered, but no hands with fingerprints. So, no clues. Until a head appears with teeth fillings that can be traced. One thing leads to another until Cho finds himself knocking on the door to Chae Su-Yeon (Eun-ha Shim), a young woman who knows all the male victims.

And so begins the real mystery for Cho - and the viewer. Through questioning and a series of flashbacks, it looks like Chae is in the frame; yet, murders continue while she is under surveillance. Suspicion falls upon her father, who, from Chae's account, is shown to be a sadistic, authoritarian figure; but he can't be found. And then there's a further nod to another thriller, Kiss the girls (1997), where the idea of a deadly duo is raised and then quashed when a prime suspect is himself reduced to a jumble of parts in a bag. All very messy for Cho, and increasingly so, because he appears to be attracted to the sweet Chae Su-Yeon, a complication he can do without, you would think.

In a way, I can also compare this film to the manner in which David Lynch constructs his films. When you see any of the more recent Lynch films, the real mystery (and challenge) is how to understand the story. For Tell Me Something, the problem is how to understand the mystery because, as I said, the killer's motivation(s) is the key. And yet, at the end, there is no absolute clarity, even though the identity is obvious. So if I provide my understanding here and now, I think that would detract from the pleasure of unraveling it for yourself. Meanwhile, I'll continue to ponder the significance of the title, the significance of which escapes me.

However, the production is excellent and the special effects (dismembered bodies, body pieces, heads, gutted torsos and so on) are so realistic they may cause some people more than just some discomfit. It will certainly satisfy the slash-and-gore set who liken this movie to Italian giallo cinema, exemplified by Dario Argento's works such as Deep Red (1977), Tenebre (1982) and others. It's classified as a horror film and I think that's justified, given the underpinnings of the story and the camera work.

I can't comment much on the acting as I'm not familiar with the actors or Korean cinema, having seen only a few; generally, however, I think the actors performed quite well.

Recommended for those who like a mixed bag of horror, mystery and thriller...and body parts.


This film is quite interesting. Most of what I would like to say has already been said. It certainly isn't one of the best Korean movies I've seen.

My main complaint is that the motivation of the murderer is never made clear. Perhaps this is my fault and I missed at the hints, but I kept on wondering why the murderer would kill these people and rip up their bodies. Still, it soon seemed quite obvious who the murderer would be (my wife guessed after about 20 minutes). And this was the largest problem with the film: the film is beautifully shot, well acted, well told, but you still can't work out the murderer's motivation or empathise with her.


I've seen this movie on the "fantasyfilmfest 2000" in Berlin. Although seeing a lot of thrillers, gore and other genre films, I was surprised by this very good film. It really tells you something: never trust your first impression!

If you get the chance - go in this movie. Its a must.


Having missed this on Film four UK I was delighted to purchase it off ebay recently. What was waste of time. I understand there is a homage to Seven and yes the technical side of the film is superb, but the plot, acting, pacing, length and direction leaves so much emptiness. I will be honest I have a problem of credibility with female serial killers, they are as rare as having the winning ticket to the lottery whilst being hit by a meteorite, but that could be over looked if the characters were interesting, unfortunately they are not. The whole film lumbers and creaks and when finally it gets to its first surprise ending, believe me it is not a surprise, it's pretence and over use of slow motion is irritating rather than dramatic. After this the audience is left bored and uninterested when the killer/victim leaves and lines up her next victim, imagine Basic Instinct on Valium. Who actually watches this, it was a huge success but I can't quite understand who it would appeal to.


In a nutshell, if you've seen five average, gory suspense movies before, you've seen this one. By the end, you won't care.

The movie has been described already in other posts, so I won't get into that. What I do want to stress are the horrible characters, and the buckets of clichés and plot devices.

The movie starts out like any typical hack'em up suspense flick with moody music, quick edits, and lots of in-your-face gore, some plot, and then some odd characters -- the cast of suspects. These suspects are all acting totally wrong given the situation, and that is why we suspect them. We never find out why they are acting weird except for the actual killer. One suspect goes on behaving suspiciously and letting the cops think what they will, and it's never explained why. Another obvious suspect is totally ignored by the cops, and is even left alone with the woman who knew all the slashed-up victims.

The police too, are stupid way beyond Keystone Cops. They follow leads into apartments, discover PIECES OF THE VICTIMS, and just hang around alone, poking through things without phoning for back-up, knowing the baddies could be back at any moment. This happens twice. Then, when attacked in a dark alley by the murderer in a car, while the murderer is threateningly -- but patiently -- gunning the engine in neutral apparently waiting for the cop to decide where to run, the cop runs straight for a fence, and the inevitable man-climbs-fence-while-chased-by-car scene, instead of calmly stepping back through the OPEN DOOR into the brick building he just came out of. He also neglects to take down the licence plate, or, apparently, to tell the rest of the police department to look for that car in the area. It shows up again under the APARTMENT BUILDING of the woman they're trying to protect.

And the pathetic attempt at pathos. There's a scene where one guy is crying -- and i'm not making this up -- while passionately squeezing a handful of semi-digested peanuts.

Nothing fits. There's no motive for the way the murderer is working. The police suddenly divine patterns of how the murderer tells the police who the next victim will be, and if you've got two brain cells to rub together, you know who's going to be marked for death next. The murderer gives away far too much information, as if wanting to be caught, but it doesn't play out that way at all.

Positives. The acting by the main female lead was decent. There was nothing she personally could do about the script or the director, or the other actors. There's lots of blood, and other than the rubber arms, all the gory props are at least reasonably believable.

The movie generally looked good. It was appealing, appropriate, and professionally done up in post production. The music was good, and I'd say some of it was a poor copy of the dramatic classical music in "Old Boy," but this movie was made first, so maybe it was the inspiring predecessor.

Anyway, best avoided.


really,closer to an 8/10. this movie was well-acted,skillfully shot,and attractive without having that disgustingly fake,over-polished look that everyone seems to use now. and it Does make sense,if referring to the progression of clues and false leads and how the movie ends. the things that were definite drawbacks and did Not make sense were more mundane; the cops have a very laissez-faire attitude towards their guns(and even More annoying,each time it's an obvious Portent Of Doom :P ),those dippy cops also missed a handful of important and somewhat obvious clues at first glance(even second and third glance). it's disheartening how many ppl apparently got lost in the 'mystery' part of this psychological thriller/murder-mystery. as long as you pay attention the whole way through,the whole set-up pans out rather well and i thought the effort put into Both the idea and the execution of it was admirable. not perfect,but being coerced into a little analysis-in-the-midst is always nice.


zRate: 1/10

This movie is flaw-ness, the director and the writer should just hang themselves for good.

THE BS scene:- The woman's old house was burned when she's a kid, may be not burned down but definitely burned bad. When she and the d-Cop revisit the house, everything is in good shape, just dusty. It's like nothing has happened. Definitely stinks :(

Why would the d-cop give his gun to the woman and go investigate alone without a gun?? Just because he could have two good chances to let the killer gets away. And so the movie can drag on for another hour.

another BS scene:- Outside the Media Art place, where the d-cop should be ran over by the killer and died long ago!? I've watch this part frame by frame. It's impossible for the killer to make a "3-point turn" and face the d-cop at the end. To cover up, the director decided to use scene with car crashing into barrels of water instead.

For those who think this movie is good or even fantastic, all I can say is u haven't watch enough good movies to make a better judgment... SAD...


Good atmospheric serial killer-on-the-loose-and-we-need-to-catch-him romp. Excellent scenes of blood and gore caught me a bit by surprise. Typically Asian in approach and all the better for it. Lots of atmosphere. DVD (R1) quality good but not reference. Recommended.


Tell Me Something is slick, fast, and entirely unpredictable up to the last second. This Korean film appears to possibly be made with an international market in mind.Terrific acting and very high technical credits add up to present a shocking, relentless crime drama. The DVD provides options for the comfort of various types of viewers (choice of Korean or English, with or without subtitles.) Some scenes are disturbingly graphic. If you are a fan of Seven or Silence of the Lambs, though, Tell Me Something comes recommended.


This movie has some pretty bleak things to say, metaphorically speaking, about love and relationships (of all kinds), and it's a workable suspense film, too. Part giallo, part procedural, part character study, it also has some surprisingly black-humored moments -- like the murder of one character by weight-machine, or the impossibly overstated catastrophe that follows the disposal of a victim in the middle of a highway (Hollywood 'thrillers' END with huge car crashes... this one has its big explosions in the middle, and ends with quiet horror).

Although there are plenty of nasty happenings in this movie, and a lot of bloody body parts popping up throughout, the really disturbing and frightening things are the implications of what's going on. It's pretty easy to guess who the killer is, though there are some good red herrings that distract the viewer's attention. However, it's absolutely impossible to guess the killer's motivation, and the REAL meaning of the whole film, until the last few moments.

I'm still unsettled from having watched this for the first time. I'm certainly going to go back and watch it again, probably several times -- because I'm going to have to live with this movie for a while before I can say I've come to terms with it. I especially want to be sure of my interpretation of the girl's last line to Detective Cho. Of course, I know it's supposed to be ambiguous, but I'm probably not going to be able to sleep until I'm sure in my own mind...


Spoiler* (A boy climbs up a building and grabs an object that he and his brother were playing with, he glances into the room where his object has landed and sees a woman in the twenties doing surgery, the boy mind goes blank and the woman looks up and sees this boy hanging from her window, suddenly he slips and falls to the ground below)

Such is how Tell Me Something comes about. But does this happen at the beginning, no but at the beginning and end. Tell Me Something creates a dialogue of intrigue into the minds of a detective, a medical student and graduate, and many more. Twisting these figures into a puppetshow of storytelling and leaving you saying "What The" by the end of your first viewing. Tell Me Something is a film that should be enjoyed late at night with the lights of and your mind open. Each scene devises a way to create a new pathway into your brain and then connects them all by a provoking plot and visually graphic and cursingly dramatic storytelling. This film should be enjoyed by those who can take a slight headache when figuring out who did it. Each moment takes your eyes on a journey through a wasteland of crime and suspense only found in films like Kurosawa's Stray Dog or Hawk's Scarface. Watch this film with the intention of being surprised because you will be and you won't regret it.


You watched the film? If no, don't hesitate. Just go and watch. And talk about it later. It is a hard-gore thriller(they named) It shows a lot of cut-things(heads, arms, legs). And full of blood. But very different from the movies like "Slayer". It's a kind of psychological slatter movie, I think. Some said its rate should be "Over Master's degrees, not Bachelor's". But I think it is better than "A silence of the lamb". Remember, it make your eyes pop up, and head ache, but when it ends you wanna watch it again.


TELL ME SOMETHING is one of those rare treats from Asia, as it has no creepy little girls with long black hair, or ghosts, or "rings", or anything like that - instead this film is a straight forward serial-killer horror/thriller, and a pretty damn good one at that...

Body parts are turning up around Korea and the only thing linking them is a quiet young woman who used to date all of the victims. A cop who's being watched for possible misconduct is put on the case, and we slowly start learning more about the girl's life - including things about her father, her best friend, and her current boyfriend that casts rays of suspicion on herself and everyone around her...

TELL ME SOMETHING is well-acted, well-directed and is an all around well-done film. A little gorier than your average American thriller (which is a plus...) but not an all-out bloodbath either. The strong story keeps you guessing, and the end has a decent little twist. Fans of SEVEN and the like will dig this one. 8.5/10


Over the past years I've become a real fan of korean movies and this one didn't disappoint me either. I like movies like Silence of the lambs (even if it isn't as thrilling and suspense now as it was when it came out) or Kiss the girls. On the other hand I hated(!) Seven which in my opinion was a bit boring and had a terrible ending. What I love about many korean movies and this one shows it especially... the female lead character is played by a beautiful woman (one of the most pretty actresses in the world I would say) which is a nice change because besides Ashley Judd and Angelina Jolie American actresses are either pretty old or just plain ugly compared to 50ies to 70ies Hollywood era. Anyway, Tell me something is a well done thriller that keeps you wondering (in difference to twelve monkey were I figuered out the end after five minutes of watching despite what people said what a surprise ending it was supposed to have - I would rate Twelve Monkeys with 1 out of ten anyway, though. And I'm a vivid reader of sci-fi and I do love Blade Runner). Anyway I'm getting lost. Just let me tell you that you should watch this movie and just enjoy it. Not because of the gore scenes but because of the riddles it offers to the audience.


This genuinely creepy Korean serial killer drama has style to spare, with some of the most gorgeous cinematography you're ever likely to see in this type of movie. As sick as I am of the whole serial killer genre, this is easily one of the better ones and I would recommend it highly. Much better than American fare like Kiss The Girls and The Bone Collector. Tell Me Something is also one of the only movies I've seen in the past few years that has a surprise ending that is genuinely surprising.


Some might say this is a "hard gore thriller". but i think this is not even a movie. The director said "i cut out some scenes to make audiences talk about this movie after watching it" but that means this movie doesn't make any sense. hard gore? it's not even a gore movie...just shows some mutilated bodies..that's all...it's not scarier than "silence of lambs" . Of course it can't be compared with "s.o.l (the master piece of this genres)" I think this is the worst thriller I've ever seen...If you want to watch this movie...why not try some trash-horrors...That would be much better...I'm surely a Korean people..but that can't be a reason to say this movie as a good one. this movie is a shame of all of us Korean ...


Just saw this film last night on Sundance and one thing that struck me about this film was the similarity to the works of Dario Argento, even down to the gloved hands of the murderer (albeit white gloves, instead of the black ones in Argento's films), did the director use his hands like Argento does as well? Still one good, if a bit gory, suspense film. I was surprised by the ending and if it is going to be remade in the west, I hope they can get Argento to do it.


A film like John Cassavetes' "The Killing of A Chinese Bookie" is one of those films that Roger Ebert often says "either grabs you or leaves you". This one grabbed me. It is perhaps the least liked film of the precious few Cassavetes wrote and directed, but it's an honest film that doesn't pull any punches. It's kind of a predecessor to "Goodfellas" and "Casino".

While Cassavetes' film lacks the polish of the two Scorsese films, I think that benefits "Killing". This is not a glossy, "high-concept" film that Hollywood prefers (although Scorsese is certainly not "high-concept"); it is a rough, confusing muddle and that is probably one of the reasons the film remains highly unseen by a great many people. However, I like rough, confusing films and one of the great pleasures is trying to figure everything out. The beauty of a John Cassavetes film is that there are no easy answers and he likes you to make your own reading on the film.

As always with a Cassavetes film, he gives juicy parts to his regulars. Ben Gazzara is excellent as Cosmo Vitelli, the nightclub owner who needs to perform the title deed to save his club. Seymour Cassel gives a strong performance as a friend of Cosmo. Cassel and Gazarra are two of those actors whose names you won't recognize, but when you see their faces, you'll recognize them. They love to take risks with their performances and you can see the payoffs for yourselves.

After a half-assed release by Buena Vista in 1989, "Killing of A Chinese Bookie" is finally available on tape and DVD from Anchor Bay Entertainment. The transfer is clean and looks great and the letterbox presentation shows that Cassavetes knew how to use his camera, even if the aspect ratio is small.


Like other (usually US) films The Murder... is disturbing and mesmerizing. The dirty quality of images (in some moments bewilderingly amateurish, ins others incredibly sophisticated), the acting, the disjointed plot, the weirdness of some scenes (like the one in the car parking), Gazzara's sublime acting, the wonderful choice of places and times... it all gives you an impression of the States like they really are, not the sanitized image you find in so many Holy-Wood flicks (not all of them, I admit, but about 85%...). Such a movie is like The Searchers or Taxi Driver or Raging Bull, unfathomable and greater than life, but in some way disturbingly like life. And the character of Cosmo Vitelli is one of those enigmatic figures that leaves you wondering whether you have been shown the story of an idiot or the story of a saint. Unforgettable.


It's been said by many that "Chinese Bookie" is the toughest of any Cassavetes films to digest. There are many slow passages (here I'm referring to the 1976 original version), many moments of embarrassing awkwardness, as you are forced to watch extended sequences filled with players who aren't any more talented or skilled than those at your local summer stock production or junior high school play.

Yet, it's very difficult not to be compelled by the story, especially as embodied in the character of Cosmo Vitelli, who Ben Gazzara seems to channel effortlessly, as if he were a second, transparent skin.

Cosmo is a fascinating character. He owns a rather ratty strip club/cabaret joint on the Sunset Strip that fronts production values and performers of the qualities mentioned earlier, does middling business, and spends nearly every dime he makes "living the high life" or the "the image" of what someone in his profession should espouse. He swills $100 bottles of Champagne, cruises around town in his plush chauffeured Caddy, an entourage of bimbettes in tow, usually to a dive mob-run poker joint that inevitably lands him in massive debt.

He would be an easy character to scorn or mock in another film, but not as Gazzara and Cassavetes portray him. Cosmo is proud of his little world and his accomplishments, and further more, could not give a damn if anyone doesn't approve of them. "You have no style," he sneers at gangster Al Ruban early in the film after the thug condescends to him.

As weird as it sounds, you have to respect someone like that, even when he finds himself increasingly trapped by circumstances and succumbing to self-doubt. At the end of the picture he says how important it is to "feel comfortable" with oneself and while we don't believe for a second that Cosmo really feels this way, we know he *wants* to. It's a refreshingly human response in a movie that only contains more of the same.

It's not a conventional audience pleaser by any means, but if you've watched other Cassavetes pictures and like his candid stream-of-consciousness style, give the 1978 edited version of "Bookie" a watch before you see the original. Cass not only cut half an hour of footage, he did it with (what else?) incredible style and creativity, really tightening the structure of the film as a whole, considerably juicing its already engaging premise.

Quite possibly the most overlooked gem from one of the '60s and '70s most commercially under-appreciated directors.


Well, at least Cassavettes was never boring. How many directors can say that? This is the oddest of his films, a strange riff on gangster/noir pictures that starts at the end and takes us right back there. The night club manager, player by Gazzara, has just finished paying for his joint, as he would say. He goes out and loses some money gambling and finds that he has to kill someone in order to pay off his debt. A normal Hollywood film would make the owner an anti-hero, one to pity. This film just lets him be the slime he is. In one scene, he tries to tell a woman that his mother and father didn't love him. She tells him that she doesn't care and he should leave. That is, in some ways, the point. He doesn't have to be a louse and a loser, but he is. Ironically, he gives a speech later about choosing who we are and being comfortable, two things that he has failed at miserably. Like all of Cassavettes' losers, Gazzara is easy to hate. The painful part for the viewer is that we see the pain in their lives too. Most films, even great ones, leave you feeling one way or another about a character, but Cassavettes' films leave you stumped. I guess that that is great, but it is very odd and hard to understand.


The real beauty of a Cassavetes film is that he is always driven to portray his stories in the most realistic manner possible, warts and all.

The majority of mainstream cinema is structured to deliver an escapist experience to the movie-going public because that is likely the primary reason why most people go to the movies; to see, hear and experience escapist fantasy. I do not malign such films, nor do I sneer at the people who enjoy them. Indeed, I enjoy an espionage, horror or sci-fi fantasy as much as the next guy. I even enjoy an occasional melodrama (The Seventh Veil, anybody?).

However, when I see a film that deals with the human condition... with everyday people, I much prefer a realistic perspective into their world. After all, mayn't people's lives and situations be compelling enough, if told properly, without escapist gloss and wooden, heavily scripted dialogue? I believe so. This is where Cassavetes shines, and where his influence upon current independent film can most powerfully be recognized.

Cassavetes pacing in this film is what probably drove many critics and viewers to criticize it so harshly. It can move at a snail's pace, especially during the painfully mediocre cabaret sequences (the cabaret owner Cosmo Vitelli is sublimely portrayed by long-time Cassavetes cohort Ben Gazzara). To watch the stumbling, off-key stage performances of the emcee and strippers is like torture, especially given the screen time Cassavetes devotes to their antics. The consequence is, however, that we are transported to a very REAL, very pathetic place in reality. Anything glossier or more skillfully choreographed would shatter the truth of what we see.

People talk over one another, they mumble, they cease to speak when you expect to hear them... But as mundane as these sequences seem, the fact remains that the story would be all the less compelling, were we to see our anti-hero in flashy sequences that synthetically push the story forward, beyond a natural pace that is apropos to the situation.

In the end, you realize that Cosmo (despite his impulsive behavior and seedy lifestyle) is a very real, very likable and very kind human being. He loves, and he is loved. His small entourage of powerless friends love him, and they feel loved. In the final sequence, our hero attains an almost Buddhist-like sense of the inevitability of his fate, the sweetness of the immediate moments of satisfaction that are his last few , his realization that there is, ultimately, nothing to regret except the finite.


I worship Cassavetes. While Coppola does mood and message, DePalma spectacle and effect, and Scorcese place and psychology, Cassavetes is all about the character, and nowhere do you see that more than in Killing. Cosmo Vitelli, strip club owner, is deep in debt and in danger of losing his beloved club. So to even things out with the Mob, he must bump off an important bookie, who happens to be Chinese. The plot isn't too intriguing, but Cosmo is. One of the most understated of Cassavetes' main characters (compared with the more involving Myrtle Gordon, Mabel Longhetti, and of course Gloria) Cosmo is a guy who's gone through life treating his emotions as secondary. They've rusted in the closet from being aired so little, and the Cosmo we meet at the beginning is selfish, sardonic, and closed off. When he kills the bookie (can you believe it!? the bookie dies!) he is horrified at what he's done and awkwardly handles being horrified in itself. By the very end he's still quiet, introspective and closed, but we get the feeling he's taken a look at his life and how he goes through it, and he's less than satisfied. It's some of the most subtle character development I've seen, and Ben Gazzara does a fantastic job as Cosmo. One of the signatures of Cassavetes' films is that they reach the climax, and then go on about another hour before ending. It's like life - things happen, but it doesn't stop there...life keeps trundling along, and we're expected to deal with what happens and keep up with the rest of the world. Some real-world surrealism qua 'artistic' strip club shows round everything off perfectly. Watching Cassavetes makes you a little nervous, because you know that if the lead actor is off, everything's going to be horrible. Thank God, the man really knows how to pick actors.


***SPOILER ALERT*** It's when nightclub owner Cosmo Vitelli, Ben Gazzara, finally paid off his debt to the local loan shark Marty, Al Ruban, is when his troubles really began.

Going out to celebrate his new found freedom with his top strippers including his girlfriend Rachel, Azizi Johari,at this mob run casino "Ship Ahoy" Cosmo lost $23,000.00 mostly in credit that the casino owner John, Moran Woodward, advanced to him. Now back behind the eight ball with his nightclub "The Crazy Horse West" in danger of being taken away from him Cosmao is forced to do a hit job for John & Co. What John wants Cosmao to do is knock off this obscure Chinese bookie, Soto Joe Hugh, or better known as the Chinaman in order to square things with him.

What Cosmo doesn't know is that he's being set up to be killed by the Chinaman who isn't a small time L.A hoodlum but the top crime boss on the West Coast! Without knowing all the facts Cosmo even if he succeeds in knocking off the Chinaman and living to tell about will then be targeted by the man, John, who contracted him to do it! A live Cosmo Vitelli is far more dangerous to John & Co. then a dead one! In that he knows, and can expose, who's behind the Chinaman's murder! Which will have the entire Chinaman mob breathing down on John & Co. necks!

****SPOILERS****Very off beat crime drama with Cosmo on the run for his life from both the John and Chinaman's, whom he knocked off with two of his bodyguards, mob.The movie ends on a down note in that Cosmo after getting away from both John and the Chinaman's mobsters is left, from what I can see, bleeding to death outside his nightclub that he took refuge in. This after his girlfriend Rachael left Cosmo knowing that she'll end up dead if she stays. As for Cosmo he at least had the last laugh in having those who were out to murder, as well as silence, him fail miserably. Even if he didn't live long enough to see it.

Director John Cassavettes most personal work that had his most deepest fears realized and put on the screen. Feeling that his dreams of making movies were being stolen from right under him, by the Moguls in Hollywood, Cassavettes used the metaphor of a nightclub owner, Cosmo Vitelli, to explain on film the demons that haunted him all his adult life. Actor and good friend Ben Gazzara at first turned down Cassavettes in taking the part of the doomed Cosmo Vitelli but when he was told by Cassavettes that it in fact was really about himself he did it as a favor to him. Cassavettes never was able to overcome the fears that the movie "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" brought out about his personal life. Unable to control his destructive alcoholism Cassavettes' directing career continued to go downhill together with his health dying of a massive heart attack in 1989 at the age of 59.


763.

And the question is: How many times do we get to see a close-up of Ben Gazzara rubbing his hand over his face while failing to convey ANY emotion in John Cassavetes' "The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie"? I suppose film fans have to be admired for their open-minded attitudes... no matter how terrible a film is some group of moviegoers somewhere will declare it "brilliant," maybe even "genius." In fact, some movies get more critical acclaim the more awful they are: if I filmed a brick wall for two solid hours and added a soundtrack of moose humping I just might earn an Oscar nom. And I'd be guaranteed to have a film better than this one.

"The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" is- for lack of a better description- a character-driven crime film. It is also an endurance test: scenes are stretched to mind-numbing length, sloppy, improvised dialogue flies by and crashes to the floor, and the bulk of the film is devoted to watching the pathetically unrealistic floor show at a strip-club/cabaret owned by Gazzara's "Cosmo" character.

First of all, are we really supposed to believe that anyone would pay to see such a morbid and depressing show? Men go to strip clubs to see breast, cheek and lipp, to throw singles and get drunk and bust a nut in the champagne room. Here Cassavetes wants us to believe that the girls dance in poorly-choreographed theme numbers while a fat, flamboyant MC sings torch songs in front of kindergarten-quality cardboard props. And every now and again one of the girls pops a nipple. The idea of this passing for adult entertainment is as absurd today as it was in 1976; this is a director indulging in pointlessly-maudlin over-dramatics. Sadly these sequences are ten times better than the rest of the film.

Gazzara incurs gambling debts with some local mobsters, and luckily for us the director included every frame of this action-free sequence! The movie is padded out with silences, lingering takes, fatal closeups and characters groaning for no particular reason. I get what Cassavetes was going for here, I do, but he does it to such a cloying extreme that I ended up going numb within the first fifteen minutes. A slowly-paced film that gives actors time to emote and breathe on screen can be wonderful... but there's so little going on in terms of character and story that it becomes a stunt, and a grating one at that.

The mob strong-arms Cosmo into killing a Chinese bookie in order to pay off his gambling debt, and the sequence is so anti-climactic that it's almost laughable. He walks in to the Chinaman's house- supposedly a heavily-guarded fortress- with about as much difficulty as walking into a Taco Bell. His escape involves a light jog and a bus ride (you heard me) and then he's back at his club to watch the girls do their show, blissfully unaware that the mob now intends to kill him to cover up their tracks.

And so we move into the best sequence of the film: the scenes with Timothy Carey. Carey was a character actor- truly insane- with roles in "Paths of Glory," "The Killing," and "The World's Greatest Sinner." Its only when he's on screen that the film is alive and gains some sense of purpose... even with an underdeveloped character and questionable directing Carey manages to create a lasting impression. It's too bad he vanishes on a whim that plays like a bad plot device, leaving us to another hour of nothingness.

Oh, Cosmo was evidently shot in the belly while offing the Coolie, a scene the director just didn't feel like filming! Now he's walking around with what is in reality one of the most bloody, painful wounds to the human body- but somehow Cosmo holds in all the blood and feels none of the pain! (I love your brave quest for Absolute Reality, Mr. Cassavetes...) The magic bullet wound simply disappears while Cosmo visits his girlfriends, evades two mafia gunmen, gives a motivational speech to his employees and performs a one-man monologue on the cabaret stage... HOORAY! Being shot in the gut was never this much fun!

Or boring. Even this implausible sequence is filmed in COMA-VISION, and you'll be praying for a bullet to your own abdomen just to make the hurting stop. Look, I could go on like this. The movie is a pretentious waste of time... Cassavetes drowns a potentially dynamic crime script with endlessly hollow filler. If you think you can make it, I wish you luck, but as a guy genuinely trying to save you time I urge you to move on.

We start shooting the brick wall pic on Monday!

GRADE: D


John Cassavetes' films have never been known for having a clear resolution or for their tidy, organised stories, but 'The Killing of a Chinese Bookie' just ends up taking the p*ss.

It tells the story of Cosmo Vitelli, an LA nightclub owner with a dangerous gambling addiction that gets him into trouble with local gangsters who give him another option after he can't pay the debt: kill a renowned Chinese accountant working for a powerful West-Coast crime syndicate.

The decision apparently forces him to question himself as a man, but really just makes him sweat every decision out and shout at everyone.

To say the film is unbearable would be unfair. From it's appealing opening scenes, one might expect something of 'Mean Streets'' calibre (Cassavetes came up with the idea with the help of Scorsese, it turns out). However, after the actual killing of the Chinese bookie, the film spirals into a cinematic oblivion of unexplained escapes and inconclusive endings.

Cassavetes seems to have wasted his many fine talents as the godfather of American indie cinema and ruin what could have been a very good film. Shame.


At first, I was very impressed with the way the plot in this movie progressed, and how the story was presented. The movie plays out like a slice out of real life, and presents the characters and the story in a more involved and human way than I have seen in any other movie, but in the end everything is destroyed by one gunshot.

This movie has been criticized by other commentators for being unengaging, for having no clear resolve, for being self indulgent, for having too many meandering scenes, irrelevant to the story, but frankly those are all a matter of aesthetic and are totally unimportant as to the quality of the film, for clearly, I as well as a lot of other people, greatly enjoyed the aesthetic elements of the film. Where everything falls apart is after Cosmo commences his attempt to murder "the Chinese bookie"

Cosmo manages to get through some guard dogs and enter the property by simply feeding them some meat, where if they would have barked it would have alerted the many armed guards on the premises. I've never known a guard dog not to bark at people who approach their property, but this point in itself is forgivable. Indeed the odds of him breaking into the residence, killing the Chinese bookie, and escaping were about 50 to 1. I won't spoil the plot by saying if he kills him or not (at any rate, it's irrelevant to the rest of the movie), but he does manage to escape, only with a gunshot wound to his stomach. The fact that it was unlikely for him to complete the task is an interesting notion which later dawns on the viewer, as the very people who enlisted him to do it, thought it could never have been done.

This is what makes the plot itself a little convoluted and nonsensical. If they really wanted the Chinese bookie dead, why would they not enlist a professional rather than a high profile club owner who had no idea what he was doing, and why send him on a job they thought he couldn't complete, and with so much security in his way. Cosmo IS a moron, since he goes along with it not questioning this and incurred the massive debt to begin with. The only logical explanation is they didn't mind if the bookie was dead, and hoped Cosmo would get killed in the process. THIS makes no sense since Cosmo had very good credit, a successful business, and would have likely been able to pay the debt off + interest. Nevertheless after he returns to his club, they lure him away, and attempt to kill him regardless, at which point the hard ass muscle man decides to opt out, saying he wont do it because Cosmo is his friend, and hes the only one who listens to him, which is another ridiculous spiral to be led down, since the 2 have absolutely no meaningful conversation prior. Again he escapes and returns to the club.

The above, does strongly compromise the whole movie, but what ultimately destroys it, is the gunshot wound. It's funny how in 2 different movies, the same exact thing is displayed completely differently. In "Reservoir Dogs", a character is shot in the stomach, he bleed so profusely that his entire shirt and the back seat of a car is completely drenched in blood, and a character states that the stomach is one of the most painful areas to be shot, whereas in THIS film, we don't see a single speck of blood on Cosmo aside from a very tiny spot of blood on his green shirt, when returns home and lies on a bed, except for the very last scene of the film, where it looks like red paint was spilled on his jacket, which begs the question, why didn't any character notice beforehand, including the viewers?? Let me say that Ben gazarra is a great actor, and a lot of the scenes appear to be improvised, but all throughout the second half, Cosmo appears to be in no pain whatsoever, running swiftly, smiling, and talking calmly without a single sign of pain. In the end which of the 2 movies do we believe? Indeed the stomach IS one of the most painful areas to get shot in as it contains a vast concentration of sensitive nerves, and it doesn't matter how hardened you are, you cannot be as laid back and oblivious to it, smiling and being reflective as Cosmo was, which is a complete misuse of Ben Gazarra as an actor. In terms of blood I know first hand that he would have been completely DRENCHED in blood, even if they did stop the bleeding, which they didn't, and which is hard to do with a gunshot wound to the stomach, without operating. My dad was shot in the army, and just a shot in the leg will cause you to lose litres of blood if you don't stop it, and moreover if he did not receive the blood transfusion he would have bled to death within 15 minutes.

My ultimate question is, lack of resolve, and far fetched plot aside, if the director was simply going to have his main character go throughout the 2nd half of the entire film with a severe gun shot wound, as if there was no gunshot wound at all, then what was he trying to prove by it? All it really achieved was to destroy the plausibility of every single scene after the gun shot wound, so due to the fact that everything in the entire second half of this movie never could have happened, It is impossible to give it more than 2 stars, an extra star for Ben Gazarras performance.


I found this film to be nearly intolerable.

John Cassavetes in many ways was a love him or leave him director. His films were never easy -- he definitely required his audience to work, not sit passively and let his films quietly come at them. I don't mind this approach to film-making, but I do require that the rewards I receive are worth the effort I bring to the experience. Not so here. "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" simply wore me out, until by the end of the movie I could not have cared less what happened to anyone in it or to the story itself. This is Cassavetes at his self-indulgent worst.

The only thing I liked about this movie was Ben Gazarra, who I've always thought was a fine and overlooked actor.

Grade: F


Artsy crap masquerading as a gangster film, is so annoying and boring, that it is a form of punishment to watch. Lines are mumbled and in many cases inaudible, not that anything interesting is being said anyway. Unbelievable chop shop editing, meaningless redundant scenes, such as the terribly boring strip club act are repeated over and over. No characters other than Ben Gazzara's are even remotely developed. The extreme closeups and hand held camera are headache inducing. Frequent light flares into the camera lens, and overly dark night scenes only add to the ineptness of this improvised mess. Avoid at all costs........ MERK


THE KILLING OF A Chinese BOOKIE is John Cassavetes fascinating look into the world of Cosmo Vitelli, owner of the Crazy Horse West, a California strip club. Cosmo, played by Ben Gazzara, owes a fortune in gambling debts, and agrees to commit a murder to payoff the loan. It's a set-up from the get go because the mob never believed he could pull it off, and was hoping that he would be killed, and then they would inherit his club. Cassavetes creates an homage to The French New Wave by employing surreal settings and improvisational dialog to create a Dadaist framework for the tale. Many scenes begin in near blackness, and abruptly, LA sunlight streams into the murky darkness while actors lines ricochet and overlap. The entertainment at the club is not the standard "Bump and Grind", but a strange 'Theater of The Absurd' where Cosmo orchestrates the action, or "he'll throw you out on your ass". Where Martin Scorsese used high energy rock'n'roll to highlight this same gangster demimonde, Cassavetes employs a more idiosyncratic soundtrack to heighten the psychological dimensions of the piece. Ben Gazzara provides an unforgettable portrait of a man grappling with a life that is beyond his ability to control. Also, Seymour Cassel puts in a wonderful performance as a mobbed up club owner. All of Cassavetes's films are noteworthy, and THE KILLING OF A Chinese BOOKIE is one of his finest.


I first saw this movie after renting it years ago. I think that it must have been the long version that I saw. - I HATED it! HATED!!! It was like I had a violent reaction to the whole movie. I told people for years how bad of a movie it was. - My chief complaint at the time (& still) is the Mr. Sophistication character. All of the strip club footage is very bad & painful to watch.

However, I currently have the short version, which I really like. It is a quiet & interesting movie, although it doesn't spend as much time investigating its characters as other Cassavetes movies. - It certainly isn't the first Cassavetes movie that someone should see, but it is worth watching every once in awhile.


This is another example of great filmmaking from John Cassavettes. Using his signature directing style (fluid camera movement, rack focusing, uncomfortably close two-shots), he creates a sprawling visual masterpiece loaded with social commentary as he explores the story of a man caught in a downward spiral in the underworld. Very, very good.


In many cases, the reality is enigmatic, and John Cassavetes is a genius to capture and exhibit that obscure sense of reality on celluloid. With deliberately rough camera work (containing lots of lens flares) and editing (not trimming out movements of the photographer's hands before and after actions), along with the crafted acting of Ben Gazzara, Cassavetes presents the obscure-hence-realistic underground gang world as no one else has. The camera movement and choreography of the murder scene is reminiscent of Godard--well calculated to appear to be not calculated. The scene is the only one accompanied by music; the entire film is inscrutably quiet.

The dragging story may be a part of his method, but it is a drawback to make the viewers lose their attentions. After Cosmo Vitelli (Gazzara) executes the killing, the plot focuses on the process he is going back to his ordinary life, but it is needlessly stretched out. Also, the scene of the confrontation against the gang members is a redundant second climax.


The short but perfect opening scene says it all. An often used but incredibly well delivered story. Traditional characters brought to life in an unique way. This is really an AMERICAN Story. Would love to see how Scorcese would handle this same script.


Fascinating Cassavetes work has Ben Gazzara playing Cosmo Vitelli, a California night club owner who, after racking up a huge gambling debt, is given the opportunity to clear it by killing a Chinese bookie. Cassavetes's distinctive style allows for a raw emotional feel that couldn't have been captured by any other director, and, like A Woman Under the Influence, it puts the viewer directly into a very real world populated by very real characters. However, at points the film loses itself amid some of it's lengthy, nearly plotless sequences. Necessary viewing for Cassavetes fans  people looking for a straightforward story should look elsewhere. One of the truly unique creations of 1970s cinema.


I always needed at least a bit of narrative drive in a film. This has virtually none, despite a promising plot. Cosmo Vitelli (Ben Gazzara) owner of a strip club (possibly the worst strip club ever) has just paid off his last set of gambling debts to a loan shark and celebrates by going gambling. to pay off that set of debts he eventually agrees to murder a Chinese bookie for the hoodlums to whom he owes the debt. He murders the target half way through the film, who turns out to be a bigger fry than just a bookie, and then realises he's been set up by the hoodlums.

John Cassavetes, however, decided to concentrate on the characters rather than the action so you see lots of interactions between Vitelli, his girls and the gangsters and lots of shots of Vitelli thinking. The only action point is the actual murder.

I understand that audiences stormed out of the cinema during and after the film during a couple of initial screenings when the film was finished. As a result Cassavetes cut the film by half an hour, to a still mind-numbing 109 minutes, but it didn't get a theatrical release. It was only shown on video after his death and has slowly become regarded as an avant-garde, character driven, masterpiece.

I'm afraid, however, that I agree with the initial audiences. The film has no pace. It is dull. Even as a character piece it fails. Gazzara is good as Vitelli and the gangsters are well acted. However, the girls are pastiche and the film's view of them is horribly dated.


Great film! Very 70s and very Cassavetes. This is all about the characters and not the story. The plot outline would, or certainly should, bore you rigid but here there are no hoodlum clichés, no nightclub clichés and no little big man clichés. Ben Gazzara is superb as the club owner who gets into trouble, out of trouble and then right back in again. It is a spot on performance that has us believing in him from the start. The strippers at the club, I understand, are, or at least some of them were, actual performers at the actual club, Crazy Horse West, where the movie was largely shot. A little puzzling now and again the film nevertheless moves well against its sleazy background and constant sense of mob menace. For once the mobsters are largely portrayed as nasty, psychotic pricks instead of some Disney like Mr Cool. I have watched the shorter, re-cut version that I know is partly re-edited from the original longer release but does include material cut from the original. Now I don't know whether to simply watch this again, it was so good, or watch the other version. Such a delightful dilemma.


Cassavetes is known for his aversion to American cinematic formulas in the name of finding the truth behind human behavior in showing them in their pathetic bareness unclad by gloss. In films like A Woman Under the Influence, Faces, and Shadows, the subject matter is sliced directly from life itself, so one wouldn't be so surprised to see a capsule of realistic human behavior. But The Killing of a Chinese Bookie is a gangster film.

The portrayal of Cosmo Vitelli in regard to his debts is crushingly pitiful, as he seems like an enslaved puppy in the incompatible guise of a cocky New York nightclub owner. Cassavetes really wants us to hate the loan sharks with a viral passion.

If the film would not spend so much inexplicable time on Vitelli's nightclub acts, it would hit as hard as most of Cassavetes's other films, what with the grittiest possible atmosphere, reminding one of the old smoke-filled, classically grimy New York City that Minnie and Moskowitz wonderfully depicted in the the film's early house and apartment scenes.


"The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" is, in either version, one of the most overlooked masterpieces from a decade that turned out many. It was generally scorned upon the initial release, so Cassavetes decided to re-edit the film drastically and attempt to give it another go two years later. Obviously this was a very personal project for Cassavetes, but it was still regarded as a failure for the acclaimed director. While its reputation has grown a bit in stature, the critical opinion is still very mixed. This is a shame, because it's one of the most daring and original films I've ever seen. Is it a pulpy neo-noir, a character study, or an existentialist primer? In truth, its really all three and works so well with its unpredictable combination in a way only "Blow-Up" could match. Many viewers were infuriated by the fact it isn't really a thriller and doesn't offer any easy resolutions. To be honest, I disliked the film when I first saw it. However, this is one of those works you continue to think about, and revisits help reveal it's true power. Again, "Blow-Up" is another film which works in the same manner.

Cassavetes' direction is very interesting. Its stylish while being minimalist at the same time, but this time around its even grittier and more claustrophobic than his previous work. As stated above, the reason Cassavetes hoped this film was going to be more of a success was how personal it is. The film's nature is ambiguous, but one possible reading is that its all a metaphor for Cassavetes, the artist, being forced to compromise for commercial interests. The main character of Cosmo and the washed-up nightclub entertainer Mr. Sophistication could both be stand-ins for the director.

The acting helps this out a lot, but film buffs will be unsurprised because of the great character actors involved. As the strip club owner Cosmo, Ben Gazzara invests a great deal of subtlety and depth into a character who could have come across as being an unlikable sleaze. He manages to make Cosmo have both of those sides and ultimately sympathetic as well. Timothy Carey, one of the most unique actors ever, steals the show with another fascinatingly surreal performance. The film is very low-key in nature, so it's good to have Carey on hand to occasionally liven the proceedings up. Seymour Cassell is also good as the untrustworthy and two-sided mobster who wants to take Cosmo down. "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" won't appeal to all tastes, but its really their loss. The film is one of the most fascinating and multi-layered ever made. Don't start here for Cassavetes, but this represents the pinnacle of his massively important contributions to cinema. (10/10)


Okay, we all have different opinions but, make no mistake, this is an enthralling, absorbing and captivating film. First and foremost Cassavetes makes films for adults - a phenomenon that doesn't seem to exist for film studios nowadays. As for the comments and questions of one of the other reviewers - well, there aren't necessarily any particular answers but the point being, I guess, that life's like that - things are never quite as clear cut as cinema (especially Hollywood cinema) makes out. An over-rated director like Scorsese could only dream of making a film as realistic and mature as this; his films are generally (and I'm excluding Taxi Driver and Raging Bull here) for adolescents. Compare this masterpiece with Goodfellas, for example - it's like comparing a Rembrandt to a Rolf Harris; there's no denying the latter has some quality, but the former is operating on a different level entirely. Incidentally, I'd particularly recommend the longer version rather than the 108-minute version, as that fills in some of the plot gaps that other reviewers seem to be querying. Having said that, the shorter film has a few scenes that aren't actually in the 134-minute cut, so why don't the powers-that-be re-edit it entirely so that a, let's say, 140-minute version was made available? Despite that minor quibble, this is as good a film as I've seen in a long, long time.


I'm a patient man, but this bored me. The characters -- and especially our protagonist -- just wasn't compelling enough to capture my attention for all the long, long scenes that inched out the plot. Still, an interesting look inside the lives of a strip club owner and his girls. Has similar feel to Boogie Nights, but without the energy.


This is my first Cassavetes film (as a director) and I red all the reviews warning people not to start with this one, but I must say that I'm quite satisfied that I did. This is truly a unique piece of film making and a nice character study showed through, what appears to be a special 70's crime movie style. I love American genre films of the 70's so that is mainly why I started with this one, and it scored.

I think that Cassavetes explored depths that were unexplored in American cinema of that time, and it perfectly shows in this film, how you can make an art/crime picture. I watched truncated 104 minutes, version, but id doesn't appear to be missing anything, either in plot or character development.Definitely recommended even if you're not a fan of John Cassavetes's style.


"Nonetheless, I find KILLING dull, boring, and unworthy of my time." My goodness, well isn't this just the most blowhard-ish statement on the boards for this movie! "Unworthy of my time". Who are you, Louis XIV, who announced menacingly, "I nearly waited" when his lackey came running up exactly at the prescribed time?!?! LOL It's a movie- it was obviously worth enough time to sit down and write a review, and even include the equally blowhard-ish device of giving your review a name: "Ted's review: C-". I suppose some people like talking about themselves in the 3rd person, like critics on a show who use it as a device, but here?


Killing of a Chinese Bookie is, from time to time, not easy to sit through. John Cassavetes had one of the harshest styles of any independent director in film history; his close-ups can be out of focus, wavering, mostly hand-held, and his DP probably had only enough lights depending on when Cassavetes could get the dough for them. But limitations that were put on Cassavetes, either by choice (which is arguable) or by cost, don't make the film feel compromised. If anything it adds to the idiosyncrasies and 'noir' quality of the script; it's a surprisingly well-directed film that Cassavetes has, but it's not simply this that leaves a lasting impression. 'Chinese Bookie' makes its impact because of mood, character, Ben Gazarra's performance, and an attention scene to scene where people are in the lowest common denominator (a strip club, a gangster's office or car, on the run). While Cassavetes has the themes that ran through the pulpiest stories and the most thrilling thrillers of the 40s and 50s, its still Casavetes through and through.

Like many of the director's best work, too, the premise is there plain and simple, and it's always the context of the dialog, the connections the actors have, the time taken for a cut-away, that makes the big differences. Gazarra is Cosmo, a club owner who has his strippers doing their dances to a weird, sort of pathetic lounge singer, and he has just wiped his debts clean. Then he goes again and makes his debt rise by gambling once more, and taking out a loan from some mobsters. When they offer an option to wipe out the debt- kill a bookie in Chinatown causing problems for the competition- he's totally reluctant, but agrees on a bad threat. The consequences are not the simple 'scene-of-the-crime-cops-get-involved-good-triumphs' kind of deal, however.

Surrounding this premise are scenes that verge on the meditative; a lot of times we see Cosmo looking on at his eccentric club, or with his 'girls', and Gazarra makes him a curious sort, a man who leads a crude, mismanaged life but is never vulgar, never even mean, and beneath his calm exterior following the murder (one of the most startling killing scenes I've ever seen, not just for the obvious other casualties) is a loneliness, almost a longing for something else. He should be just another shady character among the lot of them, but as he gets in deeper with the gangsters, and subverts his conscience (probably another strong theme here, as well as demeaning oneself because of people putting one down), the audience can suddenly have some sympathy for a man who should have none. Even when a moment could be dull or uninvolving, Gazarra makes us involved, without calling attention to his emotions in obvious ways. It's a career highlight if ever there was one.

And Cassavetes continually films without a net and without a desire to do it "mainstream". I admired how Cosmo watched the girl audition for the club, but he never pans up- only showing legs walking back and forth- until she steps down. Or the nighttime scene with Cosmo or the gangsters in the car, about as dark and ominous as possible. And the way that Cassavetes opens and closes his film is most intriguing of all (if one is still watching by the end, as mentioned it might turn off some viewers expecting a more conventional narrative)- we see the singer, who has no self-confidence following night after night being booed while trying to have his own unique style in singing for the girls to dance to, and finally he just walks off after not being able to take any more (this is the last shot, following an ambiguous end for Cosmo, as his fate is left open to chance or damnation). There's almost a parallel that can be made not just to the singer and Cosmo (Comso being booed off or not successful, in a sense, from life in general), but to Cassavetes himself.

It's strange and provocative, like a story taken for granted- of the gambler having to pay debts in an unforgiving underworld setting- given some fresh life and a sense of possibilities for what can be done in the genre. I can't wait to watch it again, perhaps even the 1976 version. Only note of warning: if it's your first time with Cassavetes start with something else like Faces or Woman Under the Influence. But if you want to take a risk, here's the riskiest picture of any genre from 1976.


I think INFOFREAKO summed this up quite superbly. Couldn't have said it better myself except to add a comment about the direction.

I am by no means an expert on matters of direction/film making. However I've watched a lot of movies in my time, a large portion of which would be listed as non-mainstream/alternative whatever you should wish to call them.

But never before have I witnessed so subtle a touch by a director. It's as if he isn't present. It's phenomenal. The way you're allowed to just *be* with the movie. To interact with it, by yourself, without being guided or steered anywhere. Nothing deliberate or obvious or....or.... it's very difficult to describe. It just felt like one was left alone in the environment of the movie to experience what was taking place, subjectively and without interference.

The only director I can say who has anything similar in his prowess (that I am aware of) is Scorsese, with whom it turns out Cassavetes developed the idea for the story of the movie some time before making it.

This is a work of genius in my opinion. Nothing else quite like it.

Watch it.... you've nothing to lose and a *hell* of a lot to gain.


John Cassavetes' The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie is a film that is one of those overlooked gems that is not only a great film, but a great record of its time, even if it might have more properly been titled The Murder Of A Chinese Bookie. As much as I love the early, raw films of Martin Scorsese- who reputedly thought up this tale with Cassavetes a few years earlier, no film I've ever seen so perfectly captures the mid-1970s Underworld as I knew it as a child. There is a sense that on can even smell the cheap liquor and cigaret smoke that pervades its images. While Scorsese's Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas are also great films, they are so highly stylized, scored, and choreographed that they attain mythic qualities, and are shorn of much of the realism Cassavetes' filmic world inhabits. What set Cassavetes apart from his contemporary American peers was that his films did not mythologize- they simply depicted. In this sense, he did for modern urbanity what German filmmaker Werner Herzog does for historical films- i.e.- brings them down to 'eye level realism'. He also depicted his society with the same level of universal realism as Yasujiro Ozu did Post-War Japan.

In watching the two versions of this film, made available as part of The Criterion Collection's five disk John Cassavetes Five Films collection- the original 135 minute 1976 release, and the 109 minute 1978 re-release, one also gets a good representation of how greatness can be achieved. The longer version has only a few scenes more than the shorter version, and some of the same scenes go on a bit longer, but the tale is basically the same, for the extra scenes- while interesting, are not essential; such as Cosmo's banter with a cabby about their New York pasts, a tale on a gopher tail's causing botulism, and scenes outside a club. Even though the order of several scenes change, or are altered a bit, and there are a few segments unique to the 1978 version, the editing on the later version is generally superior. Rarely has a film- either version, cored so deeply into masculinity and the idea of territoriality. The longer version features a deeper portrait of the film's main character, Los Angeles strip club owner Cosmo Vitelli (Ben Gazzara)- a low man in the Underworld, and greater details his connections to the mobsters of the old guard who resent the rising criminal power of different ethnic groups.

The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie succeeds as a great piece of cinema because its lead character is one of the most realistically drawn characters in film history- he's a thug and a killer, yet one who is explicable. He is a businessman who cannot separate work from personal lives- his girlfriend is the bar's top stripper, and twenty or more years his junior. Yet, it is not a film noir, as so often called, for Cassavetes transcends the simpleminded techniques of that genre, and delivers a film of intellectual heft and psychological breadth, where murder blossoms from the seemingly most inane, perfunctory, and inconsequential of moments, and leads to an examination of masculinity and territoriality that has no peers in film. Sometimes his scenes go on a tad too long, but, like Walt Whitman's poetry, there is beauty and strength in even his excesses- something that many other so-called artists' most focused works lack. Cassavetes consistently served up his art at 'the grown ups table,' as Woody Allen called drama vis-à-vis comedy, but so few film fans are used to real, or pure, drama, for Hollywood has so dissolved their minds with mid-level melodramas, that they simply are overwhelmed by his best films audacious pseudo-verité. That The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie may be his very best film is all the explanation needed for its lack of popularity in a deliterate age.


One of the lesser Cassavetes, this one is kind of hard to figure out,

but it's still worth seeing if only for Ben Gazarras performance.

Playing one of those characters that you love to hate and don't

understand, he excels even more than usual. The plot is fairly

straight forward, and doesn't merit retelling here. I found it more of

a character study, and what a character! Shot in the usual hap

hazard Cassavetes style, this one packs a punch that is hard to

take. In fact, it took me two days to get through it, but I'm glad I did.


Daffy the actor is in the boss' office, pleading for a new role and a new image. He's tired of being typecast as a comic. He brings a script for a film he wants to do: The Scarlet Pumpernickel by Daffy Dumas Duck. He starts reading it and we see the images as the story unfolds.

"Once upon a time," Daffy starts...and then stops to say, "Great opening, huh?" Anyway, "in merry old England......."

We get the story with Daffy as the hero, and Porky Pig and Sylvester the Cat playing key roles. The colors and the art in depicting the castles, streets and costumes of the day are spectacular. The story is good; not a ton of laughs but smart enough with inside jokes (Errol Flynn references, Jewish jokes and lines) to be enjoyable for us adults. Daffy Duck cartoons, from what I've seen, are geared more for adults than kids, anyway.


Blowing your brains out is the answer and that's just what Daffy Duck ends up doing.

The cartoon opens in the office of one of the Warner Brothers producers. Daffy is trying to get him interested in making a movie from his 1000 page script 'The Scarlet Pumpernickel'. Daffy plays a swashbuckling hero/thief who would like for no more than to marry his maiden in peril. But Sylvester is out to catch him and take her for himself.

The producer likes Daffy's script but need a bigger ending. How about a tidal wave? Not good enough? And a volcano explodes? Not good enough. But there's nothing left for the Scarlett Pumpernickel to do but blow his brains out?

Blam!

I love that Duck.


We've all seen the images of up-and-coming writers trying to pitch their work to studio heads. Well, in "The Scarlet Pumpernickel", Daffy Duck is trying to pitch his 2,000-page script to studio head J.L. The script casts Daffy as the Scarlet Pumpernickel, an 18th-century rogue. Seeking to trap the guy, the dastardly Lord High Chamberlain (Porky Pig) comes up with a most devious scheme: marry fair maiden Melissa off to the unpleasant Grand Duke (Sylvester the Cat). So, it all comes down to a sword-fight between Daffy and Sylvester.

Actually, it doesn't come down to that. Daffy never wrote an ending, and so at the spur of the moment, he comes up with an ending that seems a little strange to put in a cartoon. But, as he notes, that's apparently what you have to do to sell a script these days. The cartoon makes fun not only of movies starring Errol Flynn (whom Daffy mentions by name), but also of everything Hollywood-related. Chuck Jones, Mel Blanc, and that whole team probably knew all about such things. Another classic cartoon.


This cartoon starts out with Daffy Duck in J. L.'s (Jack L. Warner's) office pitching for a dramatic role. He's tired of having anvils drop on his head and never getting the girl. In his buildup of the proposed plot, he has J. L., and us, on the edge of our seats.

This is not your typical Looney Tunes fair. It's a roller coaster ride of slapstick comedy, cameos and that special brand of humor from writer Michael Maltese, all beautifully animated by one of the best crews ever assembled. It's a welcome departure from the formulaic series that the Warner Bros. cartoon factory from this era did so well, but the recipe from this one was to be tried out again with great success in later Daffy Duck shorts (Duck Dodgers, Stupor Duck).


Spoilers- Our story begins where Daffy Duck feels like he's been in the comedy game for too long and tries to convince a Hollywood exec that he can do a more serious performance, so he reads him a million page script that he wrote himself. In a parody of Emmurska Orczy's The Scarlett Pimpernel The Scarlett Pumpernickel( Daffy) is getting on the lord high chamber land( Porky Pig)'s nerves, but has captured the heart of the fair Melissa. The Lord High Chamberland gets this wicked idea to marry his daughter the fair Melissa to the Grand Duek( Sylvestor) just to lead the Scarlett Pumpnickel so they can obliterate him. So naturally Scarlett shows up, crashes the wedding and Melissa saves them both and they hid in a small structure. Whiel Scarlett goes a way for a while, leaving Melissa there in the open the Grand Duke arrives to refresh himself, only to find Melissa. Just before he sneaks his way laughing like a mad man Scarlett comes in and they sword fight to the death. The sad part is, Daffy can't seem to finish the story, except, well, I shouldn't reveal a thing. *Winks*

This short is so beautifully random and of course, hilarious!

See it now!


The Scarlet Pumpernickel is a great and very interesting take on the Alexandre Dumas classic The Scarlet Pimpernel. The short starts with Daffy getting frustrated at only being typecast in comedy, and reads HIS version of the classic to the producer. The rest is a roller-coaster of priceless performances from the toons, swashbuckling and sight gags complete with references to Errol Flynn, with an unexpected ending to boot. The animation is pretty much spotless, and the music is rousing. The story is fun, and there are some many good moments, so much so I cannot think of my favourite part.

The toons however are the real stars here; Daffy takes on the role of "The Scarlet Pumpernickel" and does so with gusto. Porky is given little to do but does what he can with The Lord High Chamberlain, while Sylvester relishes his part as the Duke. Also Melissa is a very beautiful and cute duck I think. All thanks to the marvellous vocal talents of the immortal Mel Blanc. All in all, hugely entertaining. 9/10 Bethany Cox


With TWO good themes carried off in a hilarious way, good characters chosen and a good plot, this Daffy Duck episode is pretty tough to beat! Yet another good thing about this episode, is the clever, brilliant mux-ip of the modern and the old Daffy Duck (this episode was made in 1950, when the new greedy, sly, mean Daffy Duck that most of us know was just starting to appear) and the choosing of so many Looney Tunes characters - including a new one!

The episode begins with Daffy feeling hyperly angry and stressed at doing so much comedy and he has had the nerve and steel to write a script which focuses on a more serious theme - or as serious as Daffy can possibly be. The story is not the Scarlet Pimpernel - but the Scarlet Pumpernickel, as Daffy! Also appearing is Porky as the High Chamberlain and who seems to be a new character, a yellow duck, as the fair Melissa. She is to marry the Grand Duke, who is Sylvester, but she loves the Scarlet Pumpernickel, who is an outlaw. It's the start of a grand adventure, with good gags along the way...

Good for people who like comedy versions of famous book people and good for people who want to watch Daffy's attempt at a more serious episode. Enjoy "The Scarlet Pumpernickel"! :-)


In this one, Daffy plays himself as an actor tired of comedy roles so he pitches J.L. a script called "The Scarlet Pumpernickel" by Daffy Dumas Duck. The duck's the title character hoping to rescue the fair Melissa from the evil Porky Pig. The pig tries to get Sylvester to marry her to keep her from Daffy. Also involved is Elmer (done for the first time by Mel Blanc instead of Arthur Q. Bryan) and the Mama Bear from Chuck Jones' Three Bears cartoons. Nice humorous touches throughout with Daffy, especially, in fine form. I noticed Sylvester doesn't have any whiskers here. Essential viewing for any Jones fan or anyone who loves animated spoofs of old movies.


I love it! it's my favorite (and only) Daffy Duck cartoon; I'm not too crazy about him. And I'm not to keen on parody too...In fact, I HATE IT PERIOD! But I can make an acceptance with this great swash-buckling cartoon by Chuck Jones with animation by Phil Monroe; I love Chuck Jones/Phil Monroe collaborated cartoons.

And since this short is based around the title of the story "The Scarlet Pimpernel," I would like to point out, that I've seen the movie version of "The Scarlet Pimpernel" from 1935 starring Leslie Howard on T.C.M. I had even taped it too, and I'm even thinking of reading the book too; I'm crazy about literary movies.


Chuck Jones's 'The Scarlet Pumpernickel' is something a bit special. Starring Daffy Duck, this ripping yarn casts several Warner Bros. favourites in a take off of 'The Scarlet Pimpernel'. It's a joy to see these rarely coinciding characters (including Porky Pig, Sylvester, Elmer Fudd, Henery Hawk and Mother Bear) interact with each other and the roles bring out the best in some of the characters. Porky Pig relishes the chance to play the villainous Lord High Chamberlain while Sylvester hams it up gloriously as the Grand Duke. At the centre of it all, of course, is Daffy, spectacularly blundering the role of romantic hero ("parting is such sweet stuff") as he strives to emulate Errol Flyn. The story is framed by the frantic Daffy we all know and love pitching his script to unseen studio boss J.L. J.L's demanding expectations lead to the grisly and memorable finale in which a spent Daffy commits suicide by shooting himself in the head. 'The Scarlet Pumpernickel' was an exciting all-star experience when I was a kid and it remains a remarkable piece of work when I witness it as an adult. It manages to be funny while still masterfully tapping into the spirit of the adventure stories it spoofs


I am a big fan of Dawn French and Catherine Tate, and this absolutely hilarious comedy series is a dream come true for me. It is quite dark and doesn't rely on the big on-screen moments, but rather the toned-down mild, very dry but witty humour (With the notable exception of one absolutely hilarious scene involving bungee-jumping).

The Cornwall fishing village setting is the perfect setting for two 'lesbian until something better pops up' girls, and their hilarious neighbours, including the owner of the local pub and his deaf wife, a lonely old sailor, a young lad and a young witch.

If you like Dawn French or Catherine Tate- you'll love this. Otherwise, there is a lot in this series that might not seem hilarious.


I adored this show for the most part. The first season was offbeat, quirky and unique. Catherine Tate and Dawn French are both brilliant as always, and the writing was excellent, managing to create a thoroughly enjoyable black comedy. The second series, however, left something to be desired in my opinion. The writing seemed uneven and flat, and where the first series made you care about the characters, the second leaves you feeling rather unsympathetic. There also seemed to be forced "tender moments" that don't really resonate. However, even the second series is worth watching, and there are definitely some good moments to remember.


This film is surprisingly appalling. Another reviewer states that he does not understand why no-one has claimed the screenplay, but I don't understand the lack of understanding; I can't imagine that anyone would willingly admit to writing this script - however, it seems the director has (and apparently based on Chekhov and Turgenev, no less.)

Then again, it was also the director's decision to include the exposition filled voice-over. (***Possible spoiler, although not really a major plot development as the film does not really contain any***)We know that the voice-over is an older Vladimir, we can see the younger Vladimir (Nick Stahl) following the object of his attraction (Kirsten Dunst), so why does the voice-over tell us that Vladimir is following her?(***) The director should be banned from making films until he learns the rule; show don't tell - or at the very least do not show *and* tell, because that just insults your audience.

There are many unintentionally comic moments and I admit to being so fascinated by the clumsiness of the story telling that I sat and watched the whole thing with morbid fascination.

It is a shame as there are some fine actors in this film. Julie Walters is usually fantastic especially in the type of character that is required of her here, James Fox starred in one of my favourite films, and I honestly used to think that I would enjoy Nick Stahl in any role - he usually brings such pathos to his characters.

I don't think that any actor could make the dialogue believable but it's sad that actors that I usually find believable and watchable are saddled with such clumsy writing and direction.


This film under the title of "Lover's prayer" was shown recently on cable. Not having seen the film before, we decided to take a chance on it. Director Reverge Anselmo has adapted two short stories, by Ivan Turgenev and Anton Chekhov and has given it a beautiful production.

Most of the comments one finds in this forum seem to have been submitted by fans of Kirsten Dunst and Nick Stahl, which in a way, is unfair to what Mr. Anselmo's was trying to achieve. This is a film that cries for an all British cast. Zinaida and Vladimir are played by two talented American stars, who are clearly out of their league in holding themselves against some of the best English actors of stage and screen. In fact, marketing the film and trying to capitalize on the well known faces, is the wrong approach.

That said, the two stories are intertwined and offers us a view of how things were done in the period before the Russian revolution. We are given a situation here shows us a young woman, the daughter of a somewhat eccentric and vulgar princess, who is the center of attraction among the vacationing Muscovites because of her beauty. Zinaida, being loved by young Vladimir, is separated from her young lover because his mother sees the danger in a relationship that is clearly below the young man's situation in life.

The film has an ironic twist at the end as the young lovers never get to consummate the passion they feel for one another. We watch in horror what fate Zinaida is facing and nothing has prepared us for that ultimate reality.

Julie Walters and Geraldine James are excellent as the mothers of Zinaida and Vladimir, respectively. Nick Stahl and Kirsten Dunst do good work under the Mr. Anselmos's direction. It's clear both these actors are not classically trained to appear in this type of period drama. James Fox, Nathaniel Parker and the rest of the supporting players do a marvelous job.

This film should be viewed by mature audiences. The beautiful photography of the Czech Republic countryside and the magnificent interiors add luster to the film.


This film is very strange. It looks picturesque. It moves at the pace of a snail. It mimics great Russian epics such as "War and Peace", but no-one will take credit for the screenplay. Who wrote the story? Is it an original screenplay?

Kirsten Dunst is a Russian Princess who collects a crowd of fawning sycophantic admirers who salivate over her every motion and jostle with each other for her favours. Nick Stall is the youngest and fawns the hardest. He discovers that his Dad is the one who is sampling the ladies intimate delights and tragedy looms. There is never any explicit revelation of exactly what everyone is doing and no confrontation or conflict. Consequently there is no excitement and the story struggles to hold the viewers attention.

The period, incidentally, is mid 19th century Russia at the time of the Crimean War and not Britain as stated in the plot outline. Don't blame the British just because the film is slow and boring!

Stahl looks such a twit in his ensign's uniform with a hat that is seven sizes too big.


Maybe the reason why I like this movie is mostly that I like the story "First Love" which the movie is based on. I can understand from another of the user comments that there is a lot of symbolism in the story. This symbolism is wasted on me. I have to see it as just a story. What I see then is a story about youth. Young people who follow their immediate emotions without giving much thought to the future. In the long term perspective we often make stupid choices when we act like that. I myself am not a very impulsive man, but I find myself attracted to people who are, unless they are so in a negative way. Is it not the force in emotions, especially big powerful emotions like love that make life so beautiful?

The main character Vladimir falls in love with Zinaida. She likes him very much, but she doesn't love him. She likes toying with him and her other admirers, and their feelings make them her willing puppets. This is of course not very nice of her, but it seems to me that she doesn't give it much thought and that it is never her intention to hurt anyone, she is just an emotional and impulsive girl. And maybe part of what makes them love her is her impulsive nature. After some time it becomes clear to Vladimir that Zinaida has herself fallen in love. But who is it that she loves? And is her own human nature now taking revenge for her toying with the emotions of her admirers? Will Vladimir and Zinaida mature through their experiences?

For those who thinks this story has no point I will say, that for me the point is simply to study human nature and to allow one self to feel with the characters. We don't always need a great plan to build the societies of the 21st century.

I would like to make a negative comment also. There is a second story in this movie mixed in with the main story. A woman falls in love while her husband is away in the war, and of course this causes trouble. Maybe this story could have a movie of its own (?), but I think it shouldn't have been part of this movie, because the situation of the woman, her husband (if he lives), her child and her lover is far too serious to just pop up for a moment now and then as a side story.


In a world where so many films deal with chases and 'big bangs' this film is just beautiful and a welcome change. It is beautifully shot with some of the finest acting i have seen in a long while, but then what else would you expect from a this cast list? Kirsten Dunst is really very good as Zinida, and intriguing. However for me the finest performances come from the supporting cast, Julie Walters is as ever spot on, and Geraldine James is (as ever) fantastic as the wronged wife and protective mother, the scene where she confronts her husband (another brilliant performance from Nathaniel Parker) is one of the best acted scenes i have ever seen on film. True the story can at times be complex, but it is captivating and after watching it several times the more complex aspects become clearer. It could be said to be intelligent viewing - we're not just sponge fed everything there and then - and thats a welcome change too! A film where you may be required to think - it won't exactly kill you! Well worth watching, and whether you like it or not you do have to give credit where credit is due to the cinematography and acting in particular.


Answer for somebody's question: This is original screenplay was wrote with use Turgenev's novel "First Love" (Turgenev is Russian writer). This movie filmed almost as original novel... But there are some interesting details was erased. For example: Voldemar have not seen the Zinaida before her dead. When he visited hotel there she lived, she was dead 4 days back. In movie showed that he was beside her when she was in throes of dead. But Kirsten have played this role very excellent!!! She was soooo beautiful. And she showed us The Talent.


OK, to be honest this movie was pretty awful. The first sign that Lover's Prayer was going to be a loser was when I realized that the people who were supposed to be Russian were speaking with British accents. It moves at a painfully slow pace. Also, this director has a great cast of actors and yet they still end up sucking (though I personally don't blame the actors, I blame the director). Well, maybe "sucking" is too harsh, I thought Kirsten Dunst was pretty good.

I found it impossible to take this movie seriously, in fact, I laughed throughout most of it. Even so, since I'm hopelessly in love with Nick Stahl, I have watched Lover's Prayer many times (for whatever reason it on TV a lot!) Sadly, most of the time I was laughing at him ****possible, but not really a spoiler****->(once again I am going to blame the director, with the stupid constant "older Vladimir" commentary!).

In conclusion, if you love slow boring movies, or are in love with one of the actors in this movie, ****possible, but not really a spoiler****->(if its James Fox don't bother, it's only his voice, we never actually see him) or even if you enjoy a good laugh, Lover's Prayer is for you...otherwise, don't bother.


I would compare this film with a painful root canal I once had...but I wouldn't want to insult my dentist.

I base my opinion on the following...the film contains:

- bad acting (and to wit; bad casting) - bad writing - bad camera work - bad directing - bad editing

and BAD accents. I noticed Catherine Charlton was listed as the dialogue coach. she also worked with Angelina Jolie on a number of films. this explains a lot.

if forced to say something nice, I'd have to say that there are nice horsies in the film. yay for nice horsies!

the director of this film, Reverge Anselm, also wrote and directed the execrable "Stateside". I'd appreciate it if he would never be involved in making a film ever again.


Who'dve thought California-Kirsten could do period so nicely. She was gorgeous in this. Who was the boy's father? He was really good. What an awesome period piece and just beautiful costumes. I also thought Geraldine James was wonderful.


Visually beautiful with pretty characterisations and some fine acting particularly from Julie Walters. But I had more interest in the love triangle of the serf's that I did of the aristrocracy. It really doesn't come together, but could have been quite a compelling drama if the story had peaked and resolved itself a little more poignantly. I wouldn't spend the two hours of viewing time to sit through this again because it seem's to have been directed by someone with the emotions of granite. Pity because it's so pretty and romantic in a visual sense. Too few scene's from Ms Walters. The character portrayed by Ms Dunst (Zinaida) irritated the hell out of me. Pity I had to wait until the end for her exit !!!!!!!


By far, the worst hunk of junk in which Kirsten Dunst has ever starred. The true challenge was trying to figure what the hell was the point of the film. And what happened to the woman with the hoe and the husband with one of everything (one eye, one arm, one leg, etc)?


This movie despite its shortcomings got me started researching the life of Fred Noonan nearly ten years ago. Rutger Hauer looks nothing like Fred who was tall and thin yet the movie although stereotyped is fairly accurate. It is true that Fred did indeed have a drinking problem for which he was fired but evidence shows that much of this was due to the immense strain he was under rather than a wilful character defect.It could be said that he was the worlds first commercial aerial navigator. He was nothing short of brilliant. He is shown as a likable character and this was so in real life. The video cover could have done without the image of him in a grimy shirt,cigarette in mouth, poring over a chart with a bottle of booze. Untrue. He was sartorial dresser who worried about the cleanliness of his clothes and the cigarette ash would have burned a hole in his precious chart.

One scene shows him laying back in the plane reading a magazine. For years I thought 'No way!' until recently I found out that he is reputed to have done just that in the Clipper planes which he navigated on their pioneering flights across the Pacific.Only it was thrillers rather than holiday brochures! This movie is well worth seeing. Its not brilliant art but is more factual than much of the stuff that is written about and discussed in Earhart circles. For those into the disappearance, Elgen Long's book, is in my opinion the best and most informative. But there IS also considerable 'evidence' for the theory that they may have been captured by the Japanese. In addition its not impossible that they might have perished on Niku.

Jackie Ferrari


It would be impossible to make a biographical film of Ms. Earhart then or now without some included elements of myth. Noting them would be not so much a criticism as an observation.

Re: comments about her pilot skill shortcomings, I think the issue was well served by the takeoff accident depiction. I agree that her busy schedule seemed to have precluded enough up to date stick time.

The cinematography was above the made for TV standard throughout. The aerial shot of the lonely taxi and lineup to the last takeoff was one of the most visually evocative scenes in the history of film.

It will be interesting to compare this modest effort to the impending release. Diane Keaton vs Hilary Swank, no comment from me. Rutger Hauer Vs Christopher Eccleston. Bruce Dern vs Richard Gere will be interesting. I like them both but would lean towards Dern, all else being equal. But it won't be. The tale will be told in the battle of the writers. Given the tone and level of the work today, I will bet on this film. The trailer makes the new version seem a bit florid, but it is just a trailer.


I like flying movies, but being a professional pilot, I have found misleading info about Earhart, that was probably more the fault of her sponsors than herself However, she did not shy from the limelight, and was an ardent feminist.

This made for TV film appears to be a little short on facts and long on the myths that have made Earhart the most famous of female pilots. This mythology is not fair to other aviators,male and female, who made more contributions to aviation as a commercial venture and towards safety.

This film thus centers on the myth, rather than stick to the facts. Earharts aviation contributions are substantial, however, she seemed to have more than her share of accidents, some of which indicate a basic failure of pilot judgment. Engines can fail, weather is unpredictable, gas may be exhausted before landing, but a pilot's judgment must be constant to meet the various challenges.

The real Earhart apparently had so many irons in the fire, her skills as a pilot became questionable. One of a pilot's requirements is recent experience. Making historical flights in questionable aircraft could not be a part-time job. In a recent biography of Earhart, none of her warts which would show her humanity rather than the public image which we already know. This film does nothing for me but watching aircraft fly.