I haven’t blogged much this week because A) My internet service was down for a couple of days and B) Although I’ve been knitting away, I’m still working on the same projects so there isn’t really anything new to show. I’ve also been incredibly busy with some personal stuff this week.

I did get out to see Volver last night with a friend, and we enjoyed it very much. She’s from Spain, so it made her a bit homesick. Penelope Cruz is definitely much better in Spanish films. And so beautiful - it’s nice to see a woman with curves instead of one who looks like a toothpick, like all of the top fashion models. I don’t think I could begin to describe the plot of the movie, but I’m glad I saw it.

My husband and I also laughed ourselves into hysterics watching “Gwok chaan Ling Ling Chat” (”From Beijing With Love”) the other night. My first Stephen Chow movie was Kung Fu Hustle, which I thought was very funny and creative, and it inspired me to look up other Stephen Chow movies. “From Beijing With Love” is one of his older movies. It’s a parody of James Bond films - sort of a weird mixture of Bond films, Get Smart, slapstick comedy, and Quentin Tarantino (over-the-top bloody violence). I’m sure a lot of the Cantonese humor is lost on an English-speaking audience, but it’s still funny in a very silly, “popcorn movie” kind of way. Stephen Chow got nominated for Best Actor in the Hong Kong Film awards for this movie, by the way.

I’m still not quite sure if it was just the movie itself that was so funny, or the movie combined with the poor English subtitles, which often lost a lot in translation. For example, Ling Ling Chai (played by Stephen Chow) has been called out of his retirement as a pork vendor in order to investigate the theft of the skull of China’s only dinosaur specimen. “The Commander” is giving Chai his orders:

“During the investigation, you’ve got to keep secret. And, the man with a golden gun is extreme mysterious. And he is so cruel. You will be very dangerous.”

Whether it was intentional or unintentional humor, I don’t remember the last time I laughed so much at a movie. (Of course, I’m sure the wine I had to drink didn’t hurt, either.) There’s a “Q” type character who makes the most ridiculous gadgets (like a solar flashlight that only works when there’s light), and a beautiful double-agent (Kem) who’s supposed to kill Chai but of course, falls in love with him. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Kem is trying to remove a bullet from Chai’s thigh (he doesn’t know that she’s the one who shot him in the first place). I won’t spoil the scene for anyone who may watch this movie in the future, but I was in tears of laughter. The scene revolves around Chai’s method of “Shifting Attention” as a method of anesthetic.

So if you find yourself in the mood for a silly comedy, especially if you’re a Bond fan, and you can handle scenes with people getting killed with lots of blood being splattered about (I know, that’s a weird combination - what can I say), you may want to take a peek at this one. It’s not rated, but I would say an “R” for the bloody, graphic violence. (Think “Kill Bill”.) The biggest drawback to the movie is that the dialog is so quick that sometimes you don’t have enough time to read the subtitles. Be prepared to use the “reverse” and “pause” buttons on your remote, and praise the virtues of DVDs.

While I did find the movie very funny, I know it’s not for everyone. I sort of feel like the person who takes a drink of something, says “Ewww - this is awful”, then hands it to you and says “Taste it!”. In this case, I thought it was very funny, but I might be in a tiny percentage of people with a weird enough sense of humor to think so. Caveat Emptor.