Night Bus (58th BFI London Film Festival Part V)

'Night Bus' as a concept works: top marks for that. A random collection of discussions that take place one Friday night, connected only by the fact that all the participants are on the fictional N39 to Leytonstone. But, the longer the film goes on, the less the idea appeals to me, and by the end I was rather disappointed.

Writer-director Simon Baker makes his debut with 'Night Bus', a film that tries to show the diverse worlds  that all come together on a London night bus. This is, of course, the case: all warps of life can be on the bus after hours, and most are included here. I couple discuss an incredibly middle class night out, drunk City boys argue among themselves, youths play their mobile phones for all that don't want to hear, young couples venture home after a night out...you've been on a night bus and you've been annoyed by them all.

For observation, 'Night Bus' probably scores highly in drawing together the type of rubbish you hear on a night out. But billed as a comedy, this only provides titters rather than laughs; minor skirmishes rather than drama. 'Night Bus' lacks in some areas for me.

To start, the idea maybe isn't very original. The comment was made that it's a bit like watching an episode of 'The Chicken Shop' on Channel 4, or their more recent work of magic about a night club toilet in Crawley. Filming the various conversations in a forced situation has been done, many times, even on a bus if you include Spike Lee's 'Get on the Bus', and so you don't particularly feel that anything new is being done here.

There's a lack of any glue holding everything together here. One might say that the bus plays this role, but I wouldn't. The bus driver also fails to fill this void, not being directly connected to many of the main protagonists. It, therefore, just feels like a series of conversations, rather than, ironically, a journey. This could be ten hours or ten minutes, the conclusions reached would be the same.

The conclusion is also quite weak. The lone foreign girl who gets on the back of the bus, arguing on her phone with her boyfriend, suddenly pipes up in English, summing up Londoners in a monologue that offers little more than the theme tune to 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet'.

There are some moments, some good bits of dialogue and some social comment, but 'Night Bus' could probably have been a fifteen minute short that you stumble across drunk when you switch Channel 4 on at 4AM after a night out. At which point you will have probably seen it all before.

Young Gun in the Time

With sold-out showings and being out of the city for a key part of it, I couldn't fit in many films from this year's Terracotta Far East Film Festival, their fifth to date. With the spotlight on Indonesia still to come, I've only managed one film from the offering: 'Young Gun in the Time'.

The title makes little sense, but is to be expected coming from Korean director Oh Young-Doo, whose previous two efforts are 'The Neighbour Zombie' and 'Invasion of Alien Bikini'. With names such as these, both are films that are clearly working on low budgets and, as such, are not films I have resulted in seeing. Being the UK Premiere, this is perhaps an introductory point for Oh in the British Isles.

So, plot: Detective Young-gun (played appropriately by Hong Young-Geun) is a debt-ridden private detective being forced to market his detective agency by his creditor, Sa-Jang.  Bumbling about, he stumbles upon Song-Hyeon, an academic seeking justice over the murder of her colleague and mentor. This opens up a world of violence, mysterious characters, time travel and murder with sex toys; a far cry from his usual role of hunting missing beetles. Wondering the streets of the city in his inconspicuous outfit of hat, Hawaiian shirt and Gary Neville 'tache.

Billed as a science-fiction action comedy, despite a step up in budget from previous efforts, the money is still not enough to stretch to much science, with computer hacking of unexplained proportions. The other elements clearly deliver, with enough fighting and bouncing about to warrant the 'action' tag and consistent enough laughs for the 'comedy' tag.

Perhaps the best element on 'Young Gun...' is the editing. '24' style split screens feature throughout in the use of montage sequences, coupled with Hong's goofy character to create some, at times, slick moments, though always with an element of silliness. 

In 'Young Gun...' silliness reigns, stopped only for moments of violence, but there's nothing wrong with that, when it's done in earnest, Adam Sandler. 

Fresh Wave Presents a Hong Kong Young Filmmakers Shorts Programme

Part of the 5^th annual Pan-Asian Film Festival, which seems to have largely passed me by, ‘Fresh Wave’ showcases some of the bets new directing talent in Asia. Taking place in Hong Kong each December, the focus is on short films by emerging talents – so, to some extent, you’re talking student film.

As part of the Pan-Asian Film Festival, four shorts (and some full-length trousers) were shown in London at the ICA, all having performed quite well a few months ago in HK.

To open was ‘The Little One’ by Tam Wai-ching, probably the worst of the bunch, in that it lacks some narrative structure and some blanks seem to require filling. A pair of step-siblings get the horn for each other, much to the anger of their father, who likes a bit of incest himself, forcing the teenagers to vent their frustrations. A bit patchy in places, ‘The Little One’ feels very much like student film, trying to throw-in lots of artsy shots and angles, without really delivering much substance.

Next was ‘Flowers with Aphasia’- which won Li Sum-yiet Best Film in December, and is perhaps my favourite – where a florist is ‘harassed’ daily by a young boy wanting him to make a reef. Irritated by the boy, the florist eventually gives in and gets to work on the boy’s design. Gradually developing a friendship, the florist is left to consider his relationship with his own son and lament what might have been. The simplest film of the quartet, ‘Flowers with Aphasia’ is also the strongest, being that it focuses on a story between two central characters, without straying too far from the point, making it perfectly suited to the short format.

‘On Sleepless Roads, the Sleepless Goes’ by Isabella Candice Lam is probably the most stylishly shot of the four, but again suffers from a few plot holes and fractured storytelling. Like ‘The Little One’, it perhaps needed a bit of a longer format to fully explore the characters and their motivations rather than glossing over them. But still, ‘On Sleepless Roads, the Sleepless Goes’ is a solid enough piece about a man finding himself trapped in a situation, as the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Winner of the Fresh Wave Best Student Film, ‘Dong’ focuses on Yang Dong, a schoolboy actor coming to terms with the world of women. Pursued by Nuannuan (the ‘warmth’ to his ‘winter’), Dong gradually grows a fancying for her aunt, a woman he can only stare blankly at. As the story progresses and the Beijing performance draws near, Dong is increasingly lost and confused by the world around him. More than just a simple childhood crush, Li Yushang hints that the lonely Dong’s affection for Nuannuan’s aunt is a longing of a different kind.

As with any short film, trying to do too much can leave a fractured and disjointed affair. ‘The Little One’ and ‘On Sleepless Road, the Sleepless Goes’ perhaps try to do too much in a short period of time, needing more depth to the characters to really work. Also, some being student film, there can, at times, be a sense of trying to do too much and not yet fully finding the best way to express ideas. It is no surprise that the simpler, gentler films are the ones that are much stronger and complete.

DrumSonG#2

Anchorsong's 'DrumSonG#2' from 'The Storytelling EP'. Randomly found in Tokyo shop, but now widely available at his gigs, such as his set supporting DJ Krush at The Forum in London on 01/02/2013 where these photos are taken from (apart from one - can you guess which?). Enjoy...

Kid Koala at The Scala (22/02/13)

Kid Koala doing his thing and that at The Scala in London. Probably the best live DJ performance I have seen, packed with dancing girls and puppets. Audio and visual quality assured...