Kenzo An

Bloodlust, Absolute Commitment, and Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins

Kenzo An — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:02:04 +0000

True Confessions: I have a sordid past. When I was thirteen, my bedroom walls were plastered with photos and posters from horror films. And I’m not talking Frankenstein and Dracula. I mean blood, brains, torn open ribcages. My friends used to have dares if anyone could last one night sleeping in my room alone. No one could. I hope you get the picture and I don’t need to share anymore! While the gore shots came off the walls decades ago, I often wonder (and my friends do too ;-) where interests like this come from. After all, my parents have and still are fairly conservative people. While I don’t live a conventional lifestyle, this tidbit often comes as a surprise in the progressive spiritual circles I actively engage in.

The Fate of Christian Bale

Kenzo An — Tue, 04 May 2010 04:03:51 +0000

Movie actors are brands. Movie actors are people. Brands have to evolve or they die. Look at how Blackberry’s insistence on being the corporate business person’s favorite accessory is now dying a slow and painful death as the prehistoric, life-negative, nothing-sexy-about it tier-one smart phone in the market. I have a Blackberry, and I suffer every day as I watch my friends whirl around the web like figure skaters and I can’t even visit YouTube. The brand of an actor is no different, except that rather than a product upgrade or slick new messaging, what is required is that the actor has to grow as a human being on the inside and constantly redefine themselves, or else we’ll just get bored as they star in stupid movies, make bad personal choices, and their presence ceases to inspire us.

What Critics AREN’T Seeing about Scorsese’s Shutter Island

Kenzo An — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 23:59:54 +0000

Martin Scorsese has balls. How many Italian-American directors do you know would risk making a low-budget film about Jesus Christ’s final days that not only depicted him as a man severely tempted by the perils of human weakness, but have him and the surrounding cast of legendary characters in ancient, dusty Jerusalem all speaking in American accents straight from the boroughs of New York (The Last Temptation of Christ)? And then, how many of these Italian-American directors would later follow up with a film about the young Dalai Lama in Tibet, cast entirely by Asian actors with not a single white face in sight, all of them also speaking only in American accents (Kundun)? Marty Scorsese, that’s who!