a review of 千年血后

HOOPTOBER NINE! NIGHT FOURTEEN! + 2022 CULT MOVIE CHALLENGE WEEK 40: VAMPIRE WEEK Love the style that Tony Scott brings to this movie, particularly the flash-cut editing that gives us such a rich sense of backstory to the characters without the laboriousness of full flashbacks or expository dialogue. Ridley tried doing much the same thing with the unicorn dreams in his BLADE RUNNER Director's Cut, and it comes across as random jump cuts compared to the elegant work Tony does in interleaving them here. I also love that this movie literally starts with Bowie and Deneuve imperceptibly bobbing their heads to Bauhaus performing "Bela Lugosi's Dead" in a goth S&M nightclub, because it's the sort of thing that would seem like a hilariously on-the-nose "that's so '80s" detail if this movie had been made as a period piece only ten years later. Genuinely surprised that Bowie barely makes it past the half-hour mark here, but he's very memorable and impressive in what amounts to a supporting role, and the Dick Smith aging makeups are phenomenal.