Wonderful character development!

A Major Disappointment

There are women in the film, but none has anything you could call a personality.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Overall, not a bad movie at all. Visually, it was quite nice and stylish. Despite of having a description as "a lesbian movie" it is pretty safe to watch and not vulgar. Perhaps as a music video or any kind of short movie, it would definitely perform better. But as a movie it is just not very original. Till the end I kept on finding pieces that I have seen in other places and they still did not bring any other meanings. I am not sure whether I was from the targeted age category to watch it. Storyline suggests there is either a prequel or a book to explain, yet none is actually existing. Could be a better one, if split into several movies. After it finished, I could not find anything remarkable. No, not even the soundtrack. This might be a nice thing to watch if you ever considered getting a tattoo...:)

To be honest I picked this Chinese film up because of the case. Its a weird tie closed case with Tattoos and post cards bound inside of it. I like odd box sets, especially Asian ones, which is why I picked this up. Its been sitting on myself since I got it two years or so ago. Unsure of what to watch while I sorted papers I pulled this off the shelf and gave it a go.The plot centers around a girl who runs a racy web cam site, her grandmother, one of the men watching her (he's cop trying to bust her), a kid who finds power in tattoos, a lovely tattoo artist and her brother. The girl is attracted to the tattoo artist and vice versa but because of complications and plot that is much too complicated to explain simply, things are not as easy as you might think.(nor as complicated as I'm making it out to be) I really liked this film. It has any number of very real characters that worm their way into your heart. This is an odd film at times in that it plays with the notion of why we remember and how we remember and what is real. Why do you remember what you remember? Are you sure that you really remember everything? This film noodles with the ideas at times with memories repeated differently. There are several characters who's memory is failing and we see how that effects those around them.The film also skirts around how we perceive people on line, as the cop falls for the girl and the girl isn't sure who is telling her they love her.There is something about the characters that made it all real. I mean how can you not help but love a film that shows the dangers of being a web-cam girl when you live at home with your grandmother.I need to say I loved how the romance between the characters is handled as something that just sort of was. The fact that its two women isn't really the point, its that its two people. Forgive me I'm tired of films that are same sex romance and they beat you over the head with it to the point that you wonder if its about anything other than being gay or lesbian. This is about the people.My only real complaint with the film is that the layers of memory and stories and reality kind of reach a breaking point about an hour and twenty minutes in. Somewhere about that time the film seems to be juggling way too many balls and I began to lose track of what was happening. Its a minor flaw because by that time the characters have built up enough good will it just carries you to the end.I think its worth a look, and even a repeat viewing.

Jade (Rainie Yang) has a porn web-blog and is remembering her first love after she runs into her at a tattoo parlor. Takeko (Isabella Leong - The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, The Eye 3) has a tattoo that Jade wants. More importantly, Jade wants Takeko to remember her. Takeko wants to forget because of trauma that occurred when the two of them were together many years previous.It is not a girl-on-girl story, it is just a love story with two women, about obsession and trauma, with tattoos as the tie. One doesn't have to get into philosophy to understand love and pain. Just sit back and enjoy.It was an incredibly beautifully shot film with a great score and two great actors that made it worthwhile.

Almost in the same league as Yonfan's rather atrocious Color Blossoms, Spider Lillies drives the point home that you can make cutting edge cinema without the edge, or much in the way of cutting. It's a Taiwanese film, which in this day and age is becoming a novelty at an alarming pace, but more than that tidbit, we can find very little in the way of the noteworthy here.You should know that ostensibly Spider Lillies is also a lesbian-themed story, but in every aspect this is nothing but a plastic ploy to lure in the easily seduced and gullible. In several ways we have here a repeat of fellow recent Taiwan release Eternal Summer. Then it was gay men getting the shortchange treatment, now we have the same thing with women. Zero Chou presents, for your non-existent edification, a tale likely to titillate at most a fifteen year old. They managed some of the art house stance, but in the end this results in a most inane, simply uninteresting foray.The Hong Kong angle comes in the form of Isabella Leung (Bug Me Not, Isabella, Diary), here sporting her most butch look yet. Although somewhat likable in her previous jobs, Isabella in Spider Lillies is listless and lacking in most departments. Either her heart wasn't into it or the whole lesbian drama pitch didn't quite appeal to her sensibilities.She does a Taipei tattoo artist who's shy, reclusive and in charge of a mentally challenged younger brother, played by John Shen, who thankfully grants the movie its only thespian-related redeeming feature. Isabella's character, oddly named Takeko but supposedly hailing from Hong Kong, soon hooks up with disaffected youth Jade (Rainie Yang from fondly-recalled Meteor Garden). The latter lives with her grandmother and has a whole list of grievances due to being left behind by her parents and life in general. Sure, the grandmother component works well and is touching, but otherwise Jade as a protagonist is just as unmoving as her counterpart Takeko.The two women share a past and lots of inadequately covered angst, with Jade working as a webcam girl while Takeko keeps her father's legacy alive with a unique tattoo of a spider lilly emblazoned on her arm. Jade also wants to acquire this very design, which leads to Takeko exploring internal feelings of the issue via flashbacks and rather minimal discourse with the spunky Jade.Well, if there's little discourse to write the homebase about, is at least the intercourse memorable? In a word, no. They kiss and feign doing the nasty close to the end, but just as Eternal Summer reminded us not long ago, there's a gulf measured in lightyears between showing sexual content and making ticket buyers think they're about to see sexual content.This cynical expectation-building seals Spider Lillies' fate. With a weak story, ho-hum acting and an overall dearth of relics to take away from the theater with you, this one kind of makes Color Blossoms look good, come to think of it. At least there we got a bit of Teresa Cheung's mammaries. No, Spider Lillies is no AV masterpiece and should be stricken from the playlist of even the most mundane and timid GLB movie festival.Amazingly for a pseudo-indie release, not even the soundtrack and cinematography produce moments of inspiration. That's just as well, since it makes passing on Spider Lillies much easier. Believe you us, avoid it and you won't be missing out on anything good.Rating: * *