Comments on: Toronto After Dark Film Festival: The Rebel

By: Dylan

Dylan — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:40:53 +0000

Damn, this reviewer does not know what the hell she is talking about. “Fight scene not extraordinary” my ass, the fight scene were hella good. And yes, I have seen this movie, and it is pretty good. DOn’t listen to this third-rate reviewer. Go and watch the movie and see for yourself.

By: cqkgjytmwg

cqkgjytmwg — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:55:44 +0000

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By: Drew

Drew — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:47:23 +0000

Well, you hit that nail on the head didn’t you alfie?

By: Drew

Drew — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 14:23:28 +0000

It’s possible. He was at TAD for about 30 seconds. Never there all week. It was weird as he’s a movie fan and “major supporter” to not see him at the festival all week…so maybe.

By: alfie

alfie — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 05:55:49 +0000

anyone else get the feeling john has got a new job and is leaving the movie blog?

i have a hunch about this announcement

By: bigsampson

bigsampson — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 05:01:03 +0000

LOL ok so let m e put it this way…..the french invading vietnam was a major part of vietnamese history……and the movie is vietnamese..so…..ya there you have it.

By: Kurt

Kurt — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:59:27 +0000

On the historical end (”Most of the audience (myself included) did not know why the French were invading Vietnam, and because the film does not inform us why, it made many scenes very confusing and incomprehensible at times.”)

You can bet your ass that the average Viet audience member does, and this movie was made for that audience…even with its large budget, American Crossover appeal was certainly not the intent for making this picture. It was domestic + the surrounding asian market. None of those countries are fans of colonialism and the messages in there would likely play well to the more base parts of those folks (in the same way stuff like Collateral Damage or Die Hard 2 plays in the US market)

By: Kurt

Kurt — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 04:55:08 +0000

The jarring thing that struck me about THE REBEL the fascist opinion constantly put forward by the movie. Anyone of “mixed” culture/blood must die. All the baddies are of mixed french/vietnamese blood. The good guys are ‘pure viet’ – anyone else was a bystander, gun fodder or irrelevant. I don’t know if that was intentional by Nguyen and his writing team, but it was pretty ‘in-yer-face’ and kinda off-putting for a martial arts action picture – for me anyway. (hey, not that hundreds of American action pics are fascist/racist in this way, they are. But seeing it so bald-faced in this flick sullied things a tad for me.

(On the other hand, the Train-sequence at the end from start to finish was bloody fucking fantastic on a technical level)

By: bigsampson

bigsampson — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 23:07:56 +0000

well the events of the french in vietnam was one of the escalations that led to america thinking it would just run over the vc in the vietnam war…the french occupied it for a fair amount of time. thus would explain why a good amount of veitnamese cuisine incorporates french qualities….somewhat like the british did to india =)

By: Drew

Drew — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 20:55:17 +0000

I think 6.5 or 7 is about right. However, I DID like the chemistry between the two leads. Not nec. the romance part, but I liked the idea of not knowing for sure if he had really had a changeof hear or was just a mole for the French.

As for the historical scholar thing, i agree with you to a point. I didn’t know about it either; but I just went with it. Ok, the French are in Vietnam. That’s all you really need to know, so not so much of a negative for me.

Not sure why bigsampson (above) would be learning about 1920’s Vietnam and the French invasion in his American history class, but hey – congratualtions on being such a well informed citizen.

A couple of those neck breaking kicks in the film were wicked cool. I too look forward to more Nguyen