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HEAVEN & EARTH – Kitaro
THROWBACK THIRTY
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Heaven & Earth is the third in director Oliver Stone’s trilogy of films looking at the Vietnam War. 1986’s Platoon followed the exploits of the young soldiers who were shipped off far from home and forced to endure the most horrific conditions. 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July looked at what happened to those same young men when they returned home to America, maimed and traumatized by what they had seen and done. Heaven & Earth looks at the same events from the point of view of the Vietnamese themselves. Stone’s sprawling, sometimes confusing, sometimes compelling movie stars débutante Hiep Thi Le as a simple Vietnamese woman, Le Ly Hayslip, who finds herself caught up in the violent upheaval of the Vietnam war and, inexplicably, falling in love with a kindly American soldier played by Tommy Lee Jones, who eventually takes her home with him to San Diego. Unfortunately, the film was not as well-received as its two predecessors, and today has mostly fallen into obscurity, which is a shame, especially from the point of view of its music. Read more…
THE SOONG SISTERS – Kitaro, Randy Miller
Original Review by Jonathan Broxton
Japanese composer and recording artist Kitaro’s second foray into the world of feature films, after the Golden Globe-winning Heaven & Earth, is The Soong Sisters, a Hong Kong-made drama following the lives of three siblings who live eventful lives while witnessing the modern social and economic evolution of the People’s Republic of China. Directed by Mabel Cheung, the film stars three actresses familiar to western audiences as the eponymous sisters: Maggie Cheung (Irma Vep), Michelle Yeoh (Tomorrow Never Dies) and Vivian Wu (The Pillow Book). Returning home after studying in America, the sisters arrive to find their country in constitutional upheaval. As the sisters each find husbands – one a wealthy industrialist, one a communist revolutionary, one a fiercely patriotic soldier – they find that their relationships are strained to breaking point as vastly differing political viewpoints and deeply-ingrained prejudices begin to surface. In many ways, the story of The Soong Sisters acts as a microcosm of the Chinese nation itself – torn between embracing the past and looking to the future, between the stifling confines of communism and the intimidating reality of democratic reform. Read more…
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