Russian Ark

Russian Ark is a film directed by Aleksandr Sokurov that was filmed in one shot. The storyline of the film is a guided walk around Russia's Winter Palace, touching on small portions of Russia's history.

This is a film that in my opinion is not the most cohesive story, but what it lacks in communication, it makes up for in choreography. The entire film was shot in a single take, this means that each other the actors seen on the screen had to be at the right place at the right time, and had no room for error. Truly remarkable.

The camera operator was fitted with a Steady-cam rig and the entirety of his camera movement course was longer than 2 miles. The run time of the film is 99 minutes. This was no easy task, but
Tilman Büttner was up for the challenge.

The movie while scened in one take did take a total of 2 try to perfect, which anyone who has been on set would know that this is almost unbelievable. Russian Ark was able to pull it off however and also made a great film as well. 

While I am not personally a major lover of this work, I do respect its creation and think that there is something truly beautiful about its uniqueness. The film took on a challenge that seemed almost impossible to execute with such a large production and made it look easy. 

 

My overall review of the film is a 6/10 

While this isn't very high, 

I still think it is something everyone should

try and make time for.  

Tom-Yum-Goong (The Protector)

Martial art films are probably the most underrated films, especially in the United States. There are so many foreign films that use amazing choreographs and fight scenes that the U.S could really adopt for Hollywood films. One example of a well done martial arts film is Tom-Yum-Goong, otherwise known as The Protector in the U.S.

First of all, the film has the longest no-cut, steady cam fight scene in movie history. It follows Kham (played by Tony Jaa) up a spiral staircase, fighting different thugs to get his elephant back. The only supposedly use of CGI is during the take where a glass window is shattering. The scene is 4 plus minutes long, and only one camera was used:

Tony Jaa also makes the film impressive in the sense that he developed a new style of Muay Thai called "Muay Kotchasan", which can translate to "Elephant boxing". It mimics how an elephant would defend itself, using his arms like a trunk to throw, grab, or break.

This clip shows Kham realizing that his beloved elephant has been stuffed. He goes back and forth in the dream sequence, and once he's been stabbed, starts to break the bones of the guards. This scene shows the "Elephant boxing" pretty well as you can see the way his arm wraps around the guards and what not, like elephant trunk.

Jaa also did all the stunts himself and used no wires throughout the film, which is no surprise since Jackie Chan is his idol. You can see a Jackie Chan stunt double in the airport scene, which was a tribute to him.

The film did well in the U.S, being the most successful Thai film with a total worldwide box office gross of $25,175,096.