(WTF!?)
So... this video is sponsored by MUBI
Chinese cinema is having a good year right now
In fact, so many good films are coming out
I can hardly keep up
It feels like the end of an era
After a decade of uneven performance
Chinese blockbusters have finally found its footing
I almost feel bad for digging up the past
You see, in the 2010s
Back when Chinese cinema was still on the rise
Three unholy movies ruled the meme-dom
There is Pure Hearts
The incoherent sexist indie production
Where the director sued a review platform for bad reviews
And there is The Autobots
A poorly made rip-off of a Disney classic
Allegedly made to scam government funding
But there is one final piece of sh*t to complete the trinity
Switch
A proper big-budget blockbuster
With big name stars like Andy Lau and Lin Chi-ling
And it is so bad
Both lead actors publicly apologized
Look, I held off on talking about this movie for a long time
Partly because I don't want to be known as that guy
Who talks sh*t about Chinese movies
But mainly because I just don't want to watch it
Still, it is the last of the trilogy I haven't talked about
And it deserves to be discussed
As the film is symptomatic of a time
When Chinese cinema was lost, confused
And wrapped in insecurity
Oh, and the movie did gangbusters at the box office, too
So, get ready to feel like you've just washed your eyes
With toilet water
This is the final boss of bad Chinese blockbusters
[ The Final Boss of Bad Chinese Blockbusters ]
[ Chapter One ]
Switch is a 2013 spy action thriller
About a police special agent and his mission
To protect a set of two paintings
From being stolen by various criminal organizations
Sounds simple, but due to the sloppy editing
The film is extremely confusing to watch
So, instead of a concise summary
I'll attempt to recap in a way
Most representative of my viewing experience
You ready?
Okay, so the movie begins with
Two groups of criminals fighting each other
Trying to steal one part of the ink paintings
And while this is happening
The film also intercuts to...
Questionable Imagery #1
The boss of the Japanese gang
With one scroll stolen
The Chinese police decides to relocate the other scroll
But not before...
Questionable Imagery #2
And then suddenly
Lin Chi-ling on a river
Dudes on a river
They fight
The scroll ended up stolen, too
Who got it? Not explained!
We then come to
Questionable Imagery #3
I'm just gonna... leave it on screen for a bit
I wonder how many people missed out
Because they only listen to my videos
Anyway, with both parts of the scroll gone
It is up to our hero, police agent Andy Lau, to get it back
He teams up with a new partner, Taiwanese model Lin Chi-ling
Often regarded as one of the hottest Asian women in the 2000s
You may recognize her from Red Cliff
The mission took them just 10 minutes of screen time
Andy Lau even escapes with a pretty sick stunt
We then have a pointless scene
That lets me thank today's sponsor MUBI
Andy Lau head to the drop-off point
Gets ambushed
Stabs Lin Chi-ling
And then gets stabbed himself
Turns out it was all a trap set up by the Japanese gang
Lin Chi-ling is a Japanese spy!
Which we already knew!
3 months later
Surprise! He's alive
Surprise! she's alive
Surprise, she's a nun...?
What's the point of all that?
Now, it's a mission for his redemption
Andy, his wife (yes, he has a wife)
And Lin Chi-ling team up
Why is Lin Chi-ling part of the team?
I guess because she's hot
Their mission is successful
But surprise! They got shot
Surprise! They survived
Evidently, nothing turns a woman on
Quite like a life-and-death situation
Because after being shot
Lin Chi-ling confesses her love to Andy
"I need love"
"Can you provide?"
The next day, Andy's wife gets kidnapped
And you know what that means!
Yes, she confesses her love, too!
"I want to ask you one thing"
"If without our son, will you still pick me?"
To take back the second part of the scroll
Andy Lau confronts the Japanese gang
Questionable imageries #4 #5 #6 #7 and #8
And then it's the climactic battle
The hero wins, and then it's revealed at the end
That the scroll they've been chasing all this time is a forgery
The real one has been kept safe by the police this entire time
The...
End
Ya lost?
Good, now you are part of the audience
[ Sponsor ]
It's kinda weird that I have a MUBI sponsorship
In the middle of a video about a bad movie
MUBI's curated catalog seems to be anything but bad
But there are some gems in there, too
Bad, but entertaining and culturally relevant films
Available for you to stream
Here's what's available in Canada, for example
We have Plan 9 From Outer Space
The OG "worst movie of all time", before The Room
Before even Troll 2
"You see? You see! Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!"
We have The Batwoman, a Mexican classic
In which a bikini-clad Batwoman fights a fish-man
It would be my favorite movie
If I was still a teenager
And we also have Miami Connection
A must-watch for any kung fu movie enthusiast
Or, you know
You can watch countless other good movies on MUBI
If you are interested
(I mean, how can you not)
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That's MUBI.com/accentedcinema
For a whole month of great cinema
For real, though, MUBI is genuinely amazing
I wouldn't be this excited about their sponsorship otherwise
And I really do recommend it
So, if you wanna experience the beautiful world of cinema
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[ Part Two ]
Understandably, Switch was lampooned by critics and viewers alike
People called it the "worst of the worst"
Exclaiming they "couldn't endure 20 minutes of it"
The best way I can put it
Is that it is uniformly and impeccably bad
Firstly, there's the non-sensical editing
I already tried my best to express it
But here is a specific example
In this scene, Lin Chi-ling tells Andy Lau
That the Japanese gang will kidnap his son
"Your son and the treasure..."
"You can only save one"
The film then cuts immediately to his son
Approached by the gang boss
10 seconds later
He is immediately rescued by his mom
"Your mom's here"
Another 20 seconds later
It's revealed that the mom is actually Any Lau in disguise!
What the f*ck!?
It's like the movie thinks this mask reveal
Is the most exciting part of a spy movie
So it just cuts straight to it
Not realizing you have to work for the suspense
Oh and in the next scene
The kids are kidnapped anyway
How? No idea
The movie just wanna look cool, it doesn't care how
Secondly, the gaudy aesthetic
The whole movie looks like those sleazy nightclubs
That were inspired by the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles
The holographic VFX is uninspired, too
I mean, what is he even doing?
Just scrolling through the image?
Not to mention, the porn costume
She's supposed to be in disguise, as a nurse!
What nurse dressed like this?
Yui Hatano!?
Actually, this movie is full of women
Every location has women lined up in the background
Clad in cheap costumes
Showing their bodies
Entertaining men
It looks so much like a nightclub
Where local barons would pick escorts out of a line-up
And just like in those clubs
*None* of these women speak!!
That brings us to our last point
The constant misogyny
I swear to Bill Neil this whole script
Sounds like it was written by a human trafficker
Who doxxed himself to the police
After an online argument with a Swedish former teenager
"Slender legs don't matter when she's lying down"
Jesus f*cking Christ!
The movie uses a lot of misogynist images
To show that the bad guys are bad
But there's always this undertone
That they are supposed to be cool bad
That they are powerful
Because they control women
Every man is accompanied by a hot chick
And they are the most literal interpretation of a trophy
They are perpetually amused by their men
And have little to no dialogue
The two female leads only speak to each other in a short scene
And, of course, the only thing they talk about is Andy Lau
"Why would I help him?"
"Because you love him"
This movie fails the Bechdel test with surgical precision
It is genuinely impressive
All of that was but a taste of how bad the movie is
But now, let's talk about why this movie is bad
[ Part Three ]
Here's why the director made this movie, quote:
"People are tired of foreign blockbusters"
"And are tired of Chinese indie productions"
"It's time for a blockbuster made in China"
In other words, this movie is made specifically
To emulate Hollywood spy movies
When you think of spy movies
What comes to mind?
For me, it's the globe-trotting adventure
Be it James Bond, or Mission Impossible
The colorful locations
Rich with history and culture
Are always beautifully shown
It's often a stereotypical portrayal
But at least you can feel the location
When Switch goes to Tokyo
Or Dubai, however
All it ever shows is money, wealth
Look how rich the place is
This obsession with wealth, class, and grandeur
Is one of the many symptoms
Of the Chinese vanity culture
"Face" remains a big part of Chinese social intercourse
Your ability to "show off" affects your social standing
Everyone is encouraged to keep up with the Joneses
And as China's economy grew
The material competition only intensified
Thus, words like “Bai Fu Mei" and "Gao Shuai Fu"
Entered the public lexicon
Women are valuable if they are pale, rich, and beautiful
Men are valuable if they are tall, handsome, and rich
People of mediocre social standing are mocked as "diaosi"
Kinda like calling someone a "basement dweller"
What happen if you can't afford a Gucci bag?
You buy a fake one
You skip the hard work
And edit straight to the rewards
You flaunt your wealth and your power over women
Desperately trying to convince the world
That you are a winner
And not a wiener
And so, the mentality manifested in this film
It has to have the most amount of chicks
The most famous handsome man as the lead
Match with the best-looking women as the love interests
Everything must be bigger, louder, shinier, more colorful
Boobs have to be big, cleavage has to be deep
This movie tries really hard *not to lose*
There's also a pursuit of a vague "European classiness"
Even though the final fight is between a Chinese spy
And a Japanese criminal
They choose fencing, because...
It's an exotic European sport
To this day, many people in East Asia
Still internalized the notion that Europe is or was the center of civilization
Wealth and high society
Be it insecurity, or vanity
At the time, it's all too common for people
To want to prove their worth
By comparing themselves with others
In this case, the film compares itself to Hollywood
But, in a race, you are supposed to run toward the finish line
Not chase after other people
[ Afterword ]
As pointed out at the beginning of the video
...
The *other* beginning of the video
Chinese cinema is having a pretty good year
You know why?
Because these movies aren't trying to show off
It has been almost 5 years since I made a video
Asking why Chinese blockbusters are so bad
And since then, the industry has come a long way
I first noticed the change when I watched "Hi, Mom"
A genuinely touching personal story
That embraces everything Chinese
Since then, many more filmmakers have learned to tell their stories
This year alone, we have a courtroom drama
That broken Hong Kong box office record
A couple of VFX films that are based on Chinese stories
And a sci-fi mockumentary that has since become
My favorite Chinese film in the past five years
We are seeing a surge of amazing movies
All of which, I can't wait to share with you all
See you next time