CHINATOWN

CHINATOWN-

Now a lot of people are going to be mad at me for putting this classic movie "Chinatown" on a blog such as this, but as I said before this blog celebrates movie gold and movie mold so before you threaten to kill me, hear me out....Yes this is a wonderful movie with an outstanding performance by Jack Nicholson as detective Jake Gittes, and everything else about this film is terrific!
But you have to admit the famous "She's my sister! She's my daughter!" scene wins the MGM award!
Now, not a lot of people picked this up unless you are fluent in Chinese/Cantonese, but Jack Nicholson has really got the dialect down in the end scene when Jake rushes in to Evelyn Mulwray's (Faye Dunaway) house. The butler, played by Chinese actor James Fong, tries to stop him. Gittes shouts fluently in Cantonese: "JAWL HOI KAI DAI!" meaning "Go away you f*ggot!"

It has to be one of the best enunciation of the Cantonese language by an foreign actor; you can tell Nicholson wanted to learn that line perfectly so he can use it as much as possible!

Not since Rita Hayworth in "The lady from Shanghi" had I see an American speak so well in Cantonese, she asked one of the chinamen in the theater where in exit was. It was pretty delightful to see how well she spoke, much better than even some American born Chinese actors who butcher their own native tongue!

Just sidetrack for a moment and acknowledge the career of actor James Fong, it seems like he is the only Chinese American actor in the entire United States. I bet he's done more in Hollywood than Jackie Chan and Jet Lee combined. Fong has been seen in many movies and televsion appearences, from the 1960's TV's minor guests spots and commercials to 70's "Chinatown", to the 80's in "Big trouble in little China", to the 90's "Seinfeld" and currently in "Balls of Fury" with Chistopher Walken. Fong has played every Chinese character possible in Hollywood! Talk about being type cast.

Back to "Chinatown", it is a great piece of drama any way you look at it and some laughs too, like the when Jake Gittes tells his funny story : "So there's this guy's tired of screwin' his wife... So his friend says to him, "Hey, why don't you do it like the Chinese do?" So he says, "How do the Chinese do it?" And the guy says, "They screw a little bit, then they stop, then they go and read a little Confucius, come back, screw a little bit more, then they stop again, go and they screw a little bit... then they go back and they screw a little bit more and then they go out and they contemplate the moon or something like that. Makes it more exciting." So now, the guy goes home and he starts screwin' his own wife, see. So he screws her for a little bit and then he stops, and he goes out of the room and reads Life Magazine. Then he goes back in, he starts screwin' again. He says, "Excuse me for a minute, honey." He goes out and he smokes a cigarette. Now his wife is gettin' sore as hell. He comes back in the room, he starts screwin' again. He gets up to start to leave again to go look at the moon. She looks at him and says, "Hey, whats the matter with ya. You're screwin' just like a Chinaman!"


.... Forget it, It's Chinatown.