If that's what you want to know, this is the post for you. If you want to learn some tips and tricks for working with VCDs, this is also the post for you.
Showing posts with label FAQ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FAQ. Show all posts
Thursday, October 20, 2011
What is a VCD?
You may have noticed that in a number of my reviews, I watch most of these movies in a format called VCD. What is a VCD?
If that's what you want to know, this is the post for you. If you want to learn some tips and tricks for working with VCDs, this is also the post for you.
If that's what you want to know, this is the post for you. If you want to learn some tips and tricks for working with VCDs, this is also the post for you.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
What Do the Ratings Mean?
Gweilo's Guide uses 3 different categories to rate individual movies:
The WTF Meter is the overall level of weirdness, surprise, and delightful confusion, from the gweilo's perspective. If you are a gweilo, it a measure of how often you will say "What The F#ck?!" while watching this film, usually in shocked amazement and wonder. Weird plot twists that make no sense, seemingly crazy film editing decisions, dialog (poorly translated or not) that would be bizarre in any context: All these things can contribute to the overall WTF level.
I'm talking about moments when you wonder How in the world did this movie ever get made in the first place?, but you're really, really happy that it did, because they make the film so refreshingly different.
Please note, from the gweilo's perspective, a high score on the WTF Meter is a Very Good Thing indeed! If you grew up with Hollywood, then a formulaic Hollywood movie would only ever score a zero or one on this scale. If there are formulas that produced some of the wilder examples of WTF on this website, I don't want to know them! I'd rather just be delighted with the result!
MST3K-Ability Fans of B-Movies know exactly what this one is about. Based on the venerable and masterful Mystery Science Theater 3000, the MST3K-Ability number is a gauge of how easily you can watch this movie with friends and amuse yourselves by talking back to the movie, creating a running commentary by wondering aloud what they were thinking, basically riffing off what you see on the screen. If this makes no sense to you, track down any single episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and you'll get it right away.
Sometimes a movie is the perfect straight man. It sets up such weird, zany, leaden, or awkward moments on the screen that the jokes just write themselves. A movie that scores high on MST3K-Ability will turn even the dimmest, dullest gweilo viewer into a witty, riffing genius. Such a film is perfect to watch together with friends for your mutual delight, or by yourself (if you like to hear yourself talk and you laugh at your own jokes).
You might think that the MST3K-Ability score and the WTF Meter score would be pretty similar, but this isn't the case. Sometimes a film is so WTF weird that your jaw just hangs open in amazement, and there's really nothing to say. Sometimes a film's unique qualities aren't over the top in the WTF sense, but still provide perfect fodder for delightful contemplation and conversation.
This is a rating of how good the film is by "conventional" standards. Things like good acting, good directing, good cinematography, and having a good script all play into this. It's the closest thing to a normal rating that this site has to offer, but it's also the least interesting of the three in my opinion. Remember that this site is more about appreciating how different these films can be from the normal standards of Hollywood.
But if you've never seen a Hong Kong movie before, and you want to start with one that's "good" in the conventional sense, this number is for you.
The WTF Meter is the overall level of weirdness, surprise, and delightful confusion, from the gweilo's perspective. If you are a gweilo, it a measure of how often you will say "What The F#ck?!" while watching this film, usually in shocked amazement and wonder. Weird plot twists that make no sense, seemingly crazy film editing decisions, dialog (poorly translated or not) that would be bizarre in any context: All these things can contribute to the overall WTF level.
I'm talking about moments when you wonder How in the world did this movie ever get made in the first place?, but you're really, really happy that it did, because they make the film so refreshingly different.
Please note, from the gweilo's perspective, a high score on the WTF Meter is a Very Good Thing indeed! If you grew up with Hollywood, then a formulaic Hollywood movie would only ever score a zero or one on this scale. If there are formulas that produced some of the wilder examples of WTF on this website, I don't want to know them! I'd rather just be delighted with the result!
MST3K-Ability Fans of B-Movies know exactly what this one is about. Based on the venerable and masterful Mystery Science Theater 3000, the MST3K-Ability number is a gauge of how easily you can watch this movie with friends and amuse yourselves by talking back to the movie, creating a running commentary by wondering aloud what they were thinking, basically riffing off what you see on the screen. If this makes no sense to you, track down any single episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and you'll get it right away.
Sometimes a movie is the perfect straight man. It sets up such weird, zany, leaden, or awkward moments on the screen that the jokes just write themselves. A movie that scores high on MST3K-Ability will turn even the dimmest, dullest gweilo viewer into a witty, riffing genius. Such a film is perfect to watch together with friends for your mutual delight, or by yourself (if you like to hear yourself talk and you laugh at your own jokes).
You might think that the MST3K-Ability score and the WTF Meter score would be pretty similar, but this isn't the case. Sometimes a film is so WTF weird that your jaw just hangs open in amazement, and there's really nothing to say. Sometimes a film's unique qualities aren't over the top in the WTF sense, but still provide perfect fodder for delightful contemplation and conversation.
This is a rating of how good the film is by "conventional" standards. Things like good acting, good directing, good cinematography, and having a good script all play into this. It's the closest thing to a normal rating that this site has to offer, but it's also the least interesting of the three in my opinion. Remember that this site is more about appreciating how different these films can be from the normal standards of Hollywood.
But if you've never seen a Hong Kong movie before, and you want to start with one that's "good" in the conventional sense, this number is for you.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
What is Gweilo's Guide?
Are movies sometimes boring and predictable to you?
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| Watching yet another Hollywood Movie |
I like movies. But I also get bored with movies pretty easily. This can be a problem, because once you've seen a few Hollywood romantic comedies, or road movies, or action movies, or horror movies, or whatever, you start to feel like you've seen them all.
Hollywood has a certain number of film genres that they do. Sometimes they do them well. Sometimes they do them poorly. But after watching your dozenth Hollywood flick in your favorite genre, you might start to wonder . . . Is that all there is? Will I ever see anything surprising, or unusual, or fresh and new in a movie ever again?
That's where I was. And then I discovered Hong Kong cinema. It was love at first sight.
This is because, from the Gweilo's perspective, Hong Kong films are much weirder, cooler, fresher, more daring, and more interesting than Hollywood tripe.
This is also because Hong Kong totally kicks Hollywood's ass.
Gweilo's Guide provides lengthy, in-depth reviews of Hong Kong movies. In addition to evaluating the individual films, the reviews aim to get the average, Hollywood-fed movie fan excited about this cool cinematic world.
Each film that is reviewed is given an Overall score, an MST3K-ability score, and a score on the WTF Meter. Click here to find out more about what the ratings mean.
Enjoy a whole new world of movies!
Hong Kong vs. Hollywood
What is a Gweilo?
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| "Ghost Man" |
"Gweilo" is a Cantonese term that translates literally as "Ghost Man," although it's sometimes translated as "foreign devil."
It's a word for "foreigner" (much like "gringo" in Spanish or "gaijin" in Japanese). The "ghost" part refers to the weird, death-like, unearthly paleness of Europeans. Its origins are somewhat derogatory, but it's not particularly bad any more.
I am a gweilo. Definitely. As a random pale-skinned American dude who is a fan of Hong Kong cinema, I'm a gweilo in every sense of the word.
And that totally defines my perspective on these movies. I love, respect, and appreciate Hong Kong cinema because, from my gweilo's perspective, it is so much weirder and refreshing and different from the Hollywood stuff what I grew up with.
There are some excellent resources out there on the web for looking at Hong Kong movies. Many of these resources are created by Hong Kong natives, or Chinese people, or Chinese/Americans, Chinese/Europeans, Chinese/etc. From that perspective, Hong Kong films are just films, Hong Kong cinema is just cinema.
From the gweilo's perspective though, Hong Kong movies are seriously off-the-charts WTF weird, in the most wonderful and refreshing way possible.
I'm here to share that perspective, to capture the freshness of seeing these films from the outsider's perspective.
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