In The Mood For Love (2000) - Sound and Image

In the Mood for Love, also known as Fa yeung nin wa (original title) is a Hong Kong romance drama film directed and written by Wong Kar-wai and stars Tong Leung and Maggie Cheung in 2000. In the Mood for Love is a Chinese melodrama, which falls under the Hong Kong New Wave.

The film takes place in Hong Kong, 1962. Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung) is a journalist who happens to rent an apartment in a building on the same day as Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) who is a secretary in a shipping company and become next-door neighbours  Chow and Su find themselves alone in their rooms as their partners often leave them alone for overtime shifts. They continue their everyday life in loneliness of eating alone and as their relationship develops, both of their neighbours start taking notice. To be able to continue what they have going on, Chow rents a hotel room where Su and himself can be together without attracting any attention. Chow and Su’s relationship is said to be platonic, as there is a suggestion that they would be degraded if they stooped to the level of their spouses, but over time, they realised that they have developed feelings for one another. Both their lives part for many years. Three years later Su goes back to visit her former landlady, Mrs. Suen who has emigrated to the United States and asks whether there is still an apartment for rent. A while later, Chow also returns to visit his landlords, the Koos, and finds that they have emigrated to the Philippines. He asks about the family who used to live next door, as the new owner tells him that a woman and her son moved in and they are living next door. What he doesn’t realize is that the lady living next door is Su.

During In the Mood for Love, we see a different representation of love between two married people. The sound we hear within the film consists of sounds of rain, voiceovers, loads of talking going on between Su’s landlady and her family. We can’t hear one clear conversation, which is going on. However, we come across quieter scenes where we can only hear talking as well as the sounds of crickets. During this scene, we can’t see the person who is talking. We see two people moving in at once which is a lot going on at once. We see the same locations being used and we see a repeat one particular scene but it changes slightly but has the same song. During the dark alley scenes where we see Su and Chow, there are shadows, smoke as well as change of music.

The Killing (2007) - Global TV – Korean and Scandinavian TV

The Killing, also known as Forbrydelsen (The Crime), is a three season long Danish Police Procedural television mystery crime drama series produced by Sandra Foss and Piv Bernth. It was created by Soren Sveistrup and was first broadcast on the Danish television channel DR1 in January 2007. The US remake of this TV series was produced by AMC, an American cable network in 2011. The Killing has received many awards as well as nominations which include a BAFTA Award and an International Emmy.

The TV series revolves around the life of Detective Inspector Sarah Lund (Sofie Grabol) and her team set in the Copenhagen main police department. Each series follows a different murder case one day at a time, as the one-hour episode covers the 24 hour-long investigations.

Episode 1 from Series 1 tells the story of detective Sarah Lund from the Copenhagen Police Department as she is looking forward to the end of her last shift at work before she moves to Sweden with her fiancé. Her plans have been interrupted with the news of the missing report of the 19-year-old Nanna Birk Larsen. Sarah finds herself at the top of a high profiled investigation as Nanna’s belongings are found in a field, with leads, which reach as far as the offices of a mayoral election candidate. Nanna has been found in the back of a car, which has been dumped in the lake, raped and murdered. Each episode after the murder in the first has been a search for the killer of the 19-year-old girl, suspect after suspect.

During the episode, we see text with the title, date and time of the day they are showing. The dark weather and the constant rain sets a mysterious tone to the episode that the audience is watching. The locations we see are; an abandoned flat, a graveyard, a court or debate room, police office and the school. As the investigation continues, the elections at the school become a part of the on going search for answers to do with Nanna. The soundtrack heard during the investigation in the woods while Sarah is thinking, creates tension for the audience.

The Killing contradicted the expectations of a crime drama in a few ways. This crime drama has a slower pace to the crime dramas we usually come across to. We also see flash backs and disruptions within the drama, but the foreignness makes the drama more appealing to a different audience. Throughout The Killing, we see a Nordic Noir, which allows exploring several story arcs such as; politicians, the case, suspects involved, the relationship of the main detective and the investigation-taking place.

Autumn in My Heart (2000) - Global TV – Korean and Scandinavian TV

Autumn in My Heart, also known as Autumn Fair Tale or Autumn Tale is a South Korean romance television drama written by Oh Soo Yun and directed by Yoon Suk Ho in 2000 and stars Song Seung-heon who plays Yoon Joon-suh, Song Hye-kyo plays Yoon/Choi Eun-suh and Won Bin plays Han Tae-seok and is also set in Seoul. As the Autumn in My Heart series was very successful in South Korea, it can be considered a pioneer in Korean melodramatic series, which launches a fever that is commonly referred to as the “Korean Wave”.

The story begins with two toddlers being switched at a hospital, and then jumps forward to the teenage years of the two main characters, Yoon Eun-suh (Moon Geun-young) and Yoon Joon-suh (Choi Woo-hyuk). They think they are children of a professor and think they are biological brother and sister up until Eun-suh gets hit by a truck and is in need of a blood transfusion. After the blood test results, they find out she belongs to Mrs. Choi and Shin-ae is the Yoon family’s biological daughter. They switch to their biological families and Eun-suh moves back to poverty. Many years later, Joon-suh (Song Seung-heon) goes back to South Korea as a successful artist. He goes back to his old town to visit his old friend, Han Tae-seok (Won Bin), who stays at the hotel where Eun-suh works as a hotel maid. Tae-seok falls in love with Eun-suh and annoys her until she is fired from her job at the hotel. Eun-suh and Joon-suh try to have a sibling relationship but they fall deeply in love. Eun-suh discovers she has leukemia, the same condition that killed her biological father. Know one is aware of her condition except for Tae-seok, who offers to pay for her treatment, but she soon falls in to a coma. She finally wakes up but is too weak to carry on with the treatment. Joon-suh wants her to spend her last days with him, so he takes her to his home. Joon-suh proposes to Eun-suh, they get married and dies as Joon-suh is carrying her around the beach where they spend their birthday together as teenagers. Joon-suh is too grief-stricken by her death and is hit by a truck in the same place as Eun-suh’s accident as a teenager.

Episode 4 of Autumn in My Heart includes; good acting as well as on and off banter between Eun-suh and Han Tae-seok. There is a lot of bright lighting as well as the colour white used in most scenes within the episode. The setting, fashion and the lifestyles are different to what we may be used to. The constant rain during the episode helps to reflect the mood of a sad moment of a love story of a long lost love. There are also no improper relationships with men and women before marriage.

The only two things I thought was bad about the drama, was that 2 hours were too long for an episode and the foreign language was hard to keep up with for a very long amount of time.

Breathless (1960) - The stylistic influence of US TV on British TV

Breathless, also known as A bout de Souffe (Out of Breath) is a black and white French film produced by Georges de Beauregard, directed by Jean-Luc Godard and written by Francois Truffaut in 1960. This film stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.

Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a young petty criminal. After stealing a car in Marseille, he shoots the policeman who follows him on his journey on a country road. He is on the run from the police with no money as he goes to his American girlfriend Patricia (Jean Seberg), who is a student, which aspires to be a journalist, and sells the New York Herald Tribune on the streets of Paris. He tries to persuade Patricia to hide in Italy with him. Patricia then finds out that Michel is running from the police once they question her. She later on betrays him and tells him what she had done earlier before the police arrive. The police shoot him in the street after a long time from running away, he dies.

During the scenes in French, we see English subtitles on screen and when it comes to the scenes we see in English, there are French subtitles on screen for both audiences can understand what is going on.

Within the film, we see Michel having a casual conversation with himself and to the camera and always seen smoking. He has been traveling as well as running away from the police from the crime he has committed. Throughout the film we become more aware of the storyline and what has happened. We are introduced to Patricia who calls the police on him near the end of the film, which leads him to get shot by the police and dies.