Long Day's Journey Into Night [DVD]

Advert said that the DVD was NOT region free but did not say anything about the BluRay, so I assumed it was either region free of suitable for sale in UK. I sent feedback to supplier, but got no reply. In the end I managed to rip the BluRay to watch it. The movie is fantastic.

Enough said.

Anyway, the movie is poorly produced and meaningless

So, if you need anything like a 'plot' to keep you amused for two hours, you need to leave this one well alone, but if you're prepared to simply immerse yourself in artistic beauty, this one from Bi Gan has much to offer. It's one of those that's deliberately bewildering, plunging viewers into an extended dream - meets - subconscious - meets - unreliable memory world in the name of abstract motifs such as memory, time, and space, swimming in artsy references and ostentatious technical exercises.The first half is very challenging indeed, and I suspect that many will fall by the wayside as a result, but everything (literally and metaphorically) takes off in the second half, with a hugely impressive hour-long continuous take in 3d. There's a voiceover reciting the director’s own poetry, hints of a criminal past and some regret over an old love, whilst the film deliberately, if perhaps rather too self-consciously evokes film noir by weaving in some fragmented backstory about someone who was murdered, and a mystery related to a gun. But given the willfully obscure timelines and elliptical dialogue, nothing clear emerges, instead you just have to surrender to the film’s aesthetics; and some of the cinematography by “Mustang” DP David Chizallet is really good, especially in the second half, where the sheer range and weirdness of activity including a surreal ping-pong match and a long, slow plunge down a cliff via a cable-car foreground the difficult and elaborate camera setups.Bi cites a truckload of artistic references and inspiration, from Chagall to Dante, from Billy Wilder to Modiano (whose short story “Last Evenings on Earth” is chosen as the Chinese title - don't expect anything to do with Eugene O'Neil), although the connections are a tad tenuous, whilst, by contrast, the influence of Wong Kar-wai on the visual style, nostalgic songs, femmes fatales with retro haircuts, the theme of transience invoked by broken-clock motifs, and the staged poses of lovers in a permanent state of aroused but unrequited desire, is clear if perhaps a little too obvious in places, Meanwhile, the largely unprofessional cast largely gives us range of standalone emotive facial expressions rather than anything resembling 'character'. Liu Qiang’s striking production design evokes the recesses of the mind through dark, underground sets such as a coalmine shaft, a basement pool hall, and flooded chambers with leaking roofs and dripping walls reminiscent of Tsai Ming-liang locales, and, with its ethereal electronic touches, the wonderful score by Lim Giong and Point Hsu contributes most of the dreamlike tone intended. Much to admire here, but hard work at times!

I watch many foreign language films, so I know how to turn subtitles on and off. They will not show, instead I got an error message saying they can't be displayed.