ManiakJiggy This is How Movies Should Be Made

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Mehdi Hoffman There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

another_heavenly_world This is in my opinion an excellent movie. I will start by its cinematic qualities, which in my opinion should always come first when reviewing a movie, and then extend into contents and general feel.The direction and photography are amazing. I've seen some bold attempts at making sexual sequences into art, but rarely have I seen such great achievement as in this movie. The use of colors, patterns, shades and glitter, is superb. I find the acting excellent as well. The soundtrack compliments the images adoringly and finds its climax at the music video-like sequences that emerge as marijuana visions with simple mellow songs that do shine, unfolding all the emotional tension that has been gathered throughout our incursion into this bleak urban universe we've dived into... A faithful portrait of contemporary contradictions in human society interlocked with the everlasting themes of the pursuit of pleasure, love, momentary relief and loss of purpose.On second notes I would add that this movie brings an excellent opportunity to have a first look at Taiwan's most exotic cuisine...In the end this comes as a strong movie (emotionally violent) whose thematic is well developed and as an artistic experience perfectly accomplished.

Joseph Sylvers Gorgeous. I was just expecting more Tsai Ming Liang super-freaky alienation porn, full of campy soul music interjections, but this was surprisingly emotional and ethereal. Unlike Antonini and even Tsai (his mentor) actor turned director Kang-sheng Lee understands expressing alienation doesn't mean every environment must be cold, dreary, and colorless. The world of "Help Me Eros" is neon lit from start to finish like a minimalist version of Coppola's "One From The Heart" with every frame worthy of being hung in a museum. The bright colors of Lee's world are indeed beautiful but they create a fake rainbow, like the manufactured brightness of a red-light district.A stockbroker lost all of his money for reasons that are never disclosed, sits in his apartment "Leaving Los Vegas" style watching his world fall apart one trip to the pawn shop at a time. He smokes joints constantly and tends his marijuana plants growing his closet, the only living things in his apartment. He calls a suicide hotline, where he has feelings and fantasies for a specific operator and the two begin communicating via email.This woman and her life with her chef husband who feeds her exotic animals like Ostrich and Eel to distract her from their non-existent sex life, forms the main sub-plot as these two lonely souls seek connection. In between this our hero falls in lust with several girls who sell some kind of nuts outside of his building in enticing outfits to attract repeat clients/johns. There are two sex scenes, neither as graphic or as numerous as Wayward Cloud's or Nine Song's, and both arising within a context of the story, not as just a rhythmic "device" or stylistic detour. The music far from being inorganic to the script, is pulsating electronic or soothingly acoustic and vulnerable, each underscoring the specific emotions of longing, regret, exhilaration, and emptiness that the rest of the film echoes.Shots of standing in a moving car through the sun roof as the city flood by in a blur, of beautiful Tai girls lounging around a neon lobby like cat's on a hot day, and a disturbing but tasteful bathtub full of eels, linger and don't dislodge themselves from memory easily. Kang-sheng Lee's themes are not original, but his delivery is immaculate, his fantasies genuinely erotic(something Tsai's stilted humping though more naturalistic rarely achieves, or seeks to), and his art design courteousy of Tsai himself, a joy for the eyes.Searching for affection and finding only sex, waiting for the sun and seeing only halogen and strobe, sitting in a deserted cafe in front of a River called "Love River"(according to an observant IMDb writer from Indonesia) and trying not to appear lonely, have rarely seemed so convincing or heartfelt. Like Movern Callar, the film is not the plot, but the sensual accumulations of sights and sounds, that drown the viewer like a warm bath. Dryly deadpan, minimal dialog, glowing with life, and cinematic daring, "Help Me Eros", would along with "Wayward Cloud" serve as perfect introductions to Taiwan's burgeoning avant garde aesthetics, which if you are not familiar with you need to see for yourself.

movedout Lee Kang-Sheng's measured somnambulism arrives as a sexual novelty sapped of eroticism, settles in like a lingering fever dream of aggressive imagery and departs as an affecting malaise, deepening with its pervasive languor. Writer-director Lee's second film under the apprenticeship of his mentor and producer, Tsai Ming-liang, is one of similar phases and concepts – city isolation, sexual disengagement, spiritual disenchantment, deprivation and drollness. They are also decorated with similar technical approaches typified by a slow-burning static camera, recurring motifs and intense flourishes of non-verbal actions that shock, awe and delight.But where Tsai's films revel in their metaphoric absences, Lee dwells on superficial excesses in "Help Me Eros". Through a methodical deconstruction of role-playing, desire, delusion and despair, Lee finds absurdity in its most raw and indecent. Taipei's neon-lit streets feel alive yet infected with rot, jangling with vociferousness and temptations with the city's glaring financial risks find salience in the hawking of promises rooted in sexual satisfactions and instant reverie. The mutual nihilism of the city and its decay is seen through an uprooted yuppie, Ah Jie (Lee), once a successful stock trader fell by a bad exchange and now living precariously by pawning his things while crossing and using his repossessed apartment and car.Ah Jie lives the remainder of his previous life indulging in sexual fantasy and wanton marijuana use that he grows in his closet. Having fallen out of society, desperately in need of validation, calls a suicide hotline and becomes infatuated by the woman who talks to him. The woman, an overweight and depressed Chyi (Jane Liao), forms the film's sadder, parallel story of a deaden society's need to feel something – anything – to prove that it is still alive. This is where genuine humanity can be sensed behind the lens and through the film's pro forma gratuitously explicit scenes. Ah Jie pursues this joyless tract through acrobatic encounters with scantily clad, drug chasing betelnut salesgirls. The difference lies in the former's need for physical intimacy and the latter's pursuit of ritualistic depersonalisation.With "Help Me Eros", Lee trades on Tsai's (serving as the set designer) art-house stock here for an appreciate core audience, but the film is bold and intriguing in its own right. The approach remains Tsai's but its glorious conflagration of striking aesthetics and insistent contemplations feel almost quaint and altogether poignant.

crossbow0106 Subdued is an acronym for the following: Strange, Ugly, Beautiful, Depressing, Upsetting, Erotic, Decisive. I saw this film at the Toronto Film Festival with Lee Kang Sheng in attendance. He called it a slow moving film and, if you've ever seen his films as an actor in Tsai Ming Liang's movies, you'd understand what he means. However, this movie (which Tsai Ming Liang executive produced) is not at a glacial pace. The main story is about Shen's character, an unemployed suicidal man who has been calling a suicide helpline. A parallel story is of a television chef who specializes in exotic cooking, who plies his overweight, sexually frustrated wife with the foods he cooks on television. In other words, that is the extent of their relationship now. There is excessive loneliness in this film. Kang Sheng's character also grows marijuana in his apartment and this helps garner the attention of hostess girls who are working in a bar below his apartment. To a one, the ladies are all young and sexy. The wife of the chef, it turns out, works at the suicide helpline, so there is the connection between her and Kang Sheng's character. Like many of Ming Liang's films, the city of Taipei is a co-star, ultra modern, detached and noisy. There are scenes which are darkly comic, thought provoking and sad. This movie affected me greatly. I felt for this man trying to rise out of the depths of despair. Not for the faint of heart, but if you're a fan of Tsai Ming Liang & Lee Kang Sheng, this is essential viewing.