Word: jaded
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Pretty bleak stuff. "The Human Foul" crack was a cry for help, a plea for attention that went unheeded. As time passed, my glasses turned to jade...
...monkey spirit, often steals the show. He's a cartwheeling, somersaulting, scaffold-climbing presence who occasionally releases, in his rare moments of repose, a pleasant simian cooing. The production abounds in lovely visual effects. Blending silks and spotlights, dragons and conveyor belts, Zimmerman serves up the Court of the Jade Emperor, a courier from Buddha, a ghost-king. There are slow stretches-much of the burlesque falls flat-but the overall effect is dazzling. You leave with your inner eye aglow...
Also distracting are the contrived breaks in the action of the film. Throughout the movie, Jade's narrative is broken up by cuts to an interview scene in which supporting characters relate personal stories. While this technique gives insight into these characters' motivations, the limited relevancy of their anecdotes does not make up for the distracting nature of the interruption...
Another distraction is Shum's bizarre use of lighting and slow motion. The slow motion effect pops up at the most curious times, such as when Jade stands in front of the mirror with a "Connie Chung" hairstyle, having been primped by her mother for her arranged date with Andrew. The scene in which Jade and Mark meet is awash in a deep blue light. This seems a strange mesh of lighting effects and emotion...
...generation immigrant children's struggle to balance parental expectation's with their own goals. "Double Happiness" remains most successful when it stay within this genre (familiar from films like "The Joy Luck Club" and "The Wedding Banquet"). When it attempts to step outside of this boundary, the intrigue of Jade's romance loses its force to the distracting strangeness of Shum's style...