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Reviews
Devil (2010)
A leap of faith
After The Happening (2008) and The Last Airbender (2010), I conclude that Shyamalan has issues directing a movie and articulating his thoughts. I encourage everyone to take a leap of faith and go watch Devil in the cinemas. This film is NOT directed by Shyamalan. This film is based on Shyamalan's story. Therefore, the movie is actually great!
Without giving away spoilers, the movie starts upside down for a reason. Throughout the movie, the twists and story angles fit in piece by piece as the movie slowly comes to an end. Initially I was skeptical how the movie can remain entertaining with 5 people inside a lift.
I hope Shyamalan will stick to writing great stories, then find a director to transplant the words into a reel.
Devil is the first movie of a trilogy actually.
The Last Airbender (2010)
3D movie? Only the subtitles were 3D!!
I am disappointed that this movie did not deliver the 3D entertainment value. In all seriousness, the only obvious good-looking 3D is the subtitles embossed throughout the whole movie! Is this a post-production treated "fake 3D" movie? Authorities should step in to stop such movies from cheating people. In contrast, Step Up 3D and Avatar are great visual display of 3D!!
By the way, I did not watch the cartoon series, so am not sure if the little boy is supposed to have corny action moves. The Earth villagers also have weird dramatized moves, making Chinese kungfu look stupid.
Wonder if there is still a chance for sequels, seeing how bad the first chapter is.
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Refreshing scientific detective story
It is refreshing to watch a detective who is a non-believer of supernatural and rituals. How he solve each clue draws similarities to Batman - logical, witty and observant. From the man who acted as Iron Man, Robert Downey is in a ride for many good years ahead - with Sherlock Holmes sequel planned and Iron Man 2 and possibly 3.
The chemistry between Watson and Sherlock is great brotherhood bond. Great performance by Jude Law. I had negative opinion about his acting abilities in the past. But my view has improved now.
It is intelligent how the movie trace back some flashbacks with scientific explanation.
Mao points: 9/10
Baekmanjangja-ui cheot-sarang (2006)
Cute girl. Cute guy. Boring story.
Lots of cute people in the story. Even the butler/lawyer is good-looking for his grey age. The millionaire is good-looking, his rich friends are good-looking but lack in character development. The rich female friend seems to have a crush on the millionaire but it was left undeveloped. Why did the millionaire's tall classmate in blue overalls all the time? Again, it was left unexplained. Who was the girl who slept with the millionaire? If the millionaire is arrogant, why is he so embarrassed with his butler on finding the girl on his bed? The millionaire's parents was not properly explained other than a short 5 second flashback.
The cute female lead took almost 2 hours to die. Painfully slow death.
Mao points: 1/10
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008)
The penguins need their own film!
After two films and a Christmas Caper special, I am even more convinced that the Madagascar penguins (Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private) deserve their own film.
These military trained penguins have many memorable quotes under their belt. Kowalski's conversations with Skipper and Private are always funny and witty. Rico is the mute psychotic demolition dude. One scene poked fun at how capitalism is making the working class angry without maternal leave.
The old lady is (still) irritating. She should be removed in Madagascar 3.
Mao points: 8/10
Minyeo-neun goerowo (2006)
200 Pounds of Comedy
Briefly, this Korean romantic comedy is about a morbidly obese woman with a talented singing voice. She decides to go for an extreme makeover in order to chase her love interest, the music producer. After one year of plastic surgery and rehabilitation, she transformed into a gorgeous beauty.
The light-hearted humorous film does raise two sober questions inside my head.
1) Is plastic surgery the best solution to be accepted in this modern society or among one's circle of friends?
2) Is physical attractiveness so important that it overshadows one's character traits and inner strengths in a romantic relationship? I often tell my friends to visualize someone special (probably the present boy/girlfriend) and add ten years of age. Is s/he still the right one for you? Before someone starts giving the "no one can predict the future" righteous remark, this is just a simple hypothetical question. I am making the point that physical appearance do not last forever. Beauty fades with age and time. Perhaps a girl has a 27-year-old boyfriend who is presently clubbing, drinking and smoking regularly. He does not have any savings and spends as quickly as he earns. Add 10 years to his age. Tell me what you see. Bad habits are as skin-deep as character traits. You cannot change them overnight.
Mao points: 8/10
Shinobi (2005)
Let's meet at the cliff tonight
Shinobi is a story of two villages sending their top five shinobis to battle against each other; only one shall remain standing. Apparently, this act was instructed by the Lord of the Rings and the villagers obey blindly simply because they are rival villages. What happened to common sense? The film begins with a nice scenic shot of nature and the audience sees the time freezer dude and the evil eyes woman together. They are from different shinobi villages but are lovers at the same time. Then, there were some cliff bouncing moments to demonstrate the shinobis' ability. Makes you wonder why the villagers did not bounce around to escape from the cannons and fire arrows in the ending.
The characters are cool and hip; catering to the teenagers and MTV generation. From the time freezer dude's team, we have fortune teller, shuriken dude, sexy legs and rubber face. From the evil eyes woman's team, we have white hair immortal, pretty boy shadow hands, dirty wolf, yellow magic powder. After announcing the challengers, the love struck couple again met again at the cliff again.
Mao points: 6/10
Rashômon (1950)
Who is more wrong?
Firstly, you need to appreciate the fact that everyone in Rashômon lied. This includes the Buddhist priest because he mentioned that everyone is good in nature. Even though he is aware of stories of rape and murder, he chooses to live in self-denial; to have faith in the goodness of humanity. Therefore, if you are still debating on who is absolutely right or wrong, then you are probably missing Kurosawa's intention. We need to analyze who is more wrong than the rest. Similarly, philosophy students will go off-topic if they choose to debate on whether Euthyphro was absolutely right or wrong to prosecute his father for accidentally murdering a murderer.
The deceased samurai claims that someone removed the dagger from his chest and the woodcutter admits to the theft in the ending. So, let us start from here. Two claims from two accounts support that the murder weapon was a dagger. This eliminates the possibility that the murder weapon was a sword. Therefore, the bandit lied about killing the samurai with a sword. It is plausible that his ego as a famous bandit made him conjure this lie. In fact, it is possible that he ran off like a typical bandit after the rape without engaging a meaningless fight with the angry samurai.
Did the deceased samurai lie? Yes. Remember what I said earlier, everyone lied in this film. The discussion should be centered on who lied the most. It is plausible that he did not commit suicide even though the murder weapon has been verified to be a dagger in the above paragraph. It is possible that the deceased samurai lied about his suicide to protect any remaining samurai dignity because the bandit raped his wife. So who killed him then? It is possible that his wife actually tripped and killed him accidentally with the dagger. To reveal the truth that he was killed in a freak accident is probably one of the last things in a respectable samurai's mind.
Finally, the woodcutter, probably the biggest liar of all the characters' lies combined. He lied from the beginning, filed a false police report, made false statements in front of the judge, stole the valuable dagger and angrily accused the deceased samurai of lying about the murder weapon, which was later exposed by the commoner. He even reprimanded the commoner for stealing the clothes from an abandoned baby, which shows how hypocritical he is. All these accumulated lies make his claim of having a family of six children extremely unreliable. In the ending, the woodcutter was wearing a mild smile while walking towards the camera with the baby in his arms. The unusual eerie music played in the ending was also very suggestive. In my opinion, he is probably going to sell the baby to the black market for more money, considering the fact that he stole the murder weapon out of greed.
Rashômon's ending was left open-ended by Kurosawa and I urge the audience not to watch on a superficial level. The ending is not as simple as it seems. This is Kurosawa we are talking about, not any random 'grade C' director. It is definitely not a hundred percent happy conclusion. Another open-ended film directed by Kurosawa is 'Rhapsody in August' (1991), which I studied for my film module.
Mao points: 10/10
Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)
Scrat is the Star
Scrat brought us the most laughter for his extremely positive attitude towards getting an acorn. In a film, it is difficult to create a memorable character with no lines. After laughing at Scrat's funny and unsuccessful attempts, we need to reflect that life is a bumpy road and we should not give up easily.
There are several humorous one-liners, as well as cliché phrases. Some subtle; some blatantly obvious. We were probably smiling when one of the possums was doing the Robert Deniro's famous gesture in 'Meet the Fockers' (2004).
Suppose I am given a chance to delete a scene, I would probably pick the vultures' musical scene. The musical scene seems awkward and does not fit into the film nicely.
Interestingly, the voice actor of Scrat is Ice Age (2002) director, Chris Wedge. However, he did not direct the sequel, Ice Age 2.
Mao points: 9/10
Run 2 U (2003)
Long pop songs and girls with long hair
I am saddened by the fact that 'Run 2 U' was made in 2003, which makes it a recent production. I have watched hundreds of films and this film definitely lacks character development and plot. It is a disjointed film made by an amateur director; this is his second film.
Here is a short summary of what you can expect from this film: Nonsensical scenes of a girl toying with her dyed hair, walking down dark alleys and looking aimlessly. These scenes are further fueled by pop songs playing in the background.
On the other hand, I highly recommend you to do yourself a favor and pick up South Korean masterpieces such as 3-Iron, A Bittersweet Life, Marathon, My Sassy Girl, Oldboy or The Bow.
Mao points: 1/10
Oh! Haepi dei (2003)
Unhappy day for me
We need to accept the fact that romantic comedy hit 'My Sassy Girl' (2001) popularized the 'weak male strong female' genre in South Korea. Jeon Ji-hyun is one of the most expressive and versatile South Korean artistes. However, 'Oh! Happy Day' seems like a weak clone of the original successful formula.
The ending of this film contains a string of childish slapstick scenes. The characters start to dance, sing illogically and engage in celebrations. I strongly urge fans of Jang Nara to rate this film carefully and slowly.
Mao points: 4/10
Randorî (2002)
Do you have any laundry for me?
Frankly, there is no significance in the title of this film. The title can be easily renamed to something else, given its weak plot and characters. Additionally, the confused amateur director, Junichi Mori, did not develop the significance of laundry.
An intellectually disabled kid, Teru (better known as Sugihara in 'GO'; made in 2001), was tasked to take care of his grandmother's laundry store. To gain some sympathy votes, Teru wears a cute knitted hat permanently attached to his head. He got into some romance issues as expected.
Mao points: 1/10
Police Academy 3: Back in Training (1986)
Decent sequel
One of the most memorable characters in 'Police Academy' is Sgt Larvell Jones (Michael Winslow). In the film, he was poking fun at badly dubbed Chinese kungfu dialogues and made an extremely high but absolutely pointless jump in front of the bad guys. It was a hilarious jump. His creativity in generating sounds is also impressive. The sound effects genuinely came from his mouth apparently. Unfortunately, this is the last appearance of Mauser (Art Metrano) because he broke his neck in 1986. The 'Police Academy' series is going strong with its eighth installment coming out in 2006.
Mao points: 5/10
Appurushîdo (2004)
Matrix this. Matrix that.
Ignorant moviegoers are still claiming that the slow-motion fighting choreography of Matrix (1999) is original. These sequences were coined as simply 'Matrix' effect. When such said effects appear in Appleseed, they will shout "See! Japanese anime copied the Matrix effect." Ghost in the Shell was produced in 1995. Go figure.
Modeling human-like characters is not an easy task. For example, animated films such as Shrek, A Bug's Life. The audience is unable to judge how accurate or true the characters were modeled because the characters are fictional. In addition, the two most expressive and difficult-to-animate human parts are face and fingers. Hence, the characters in Appleseed (and most animated films) are wearing gloves most of the time. Even if the hands are exposed, it will most likely be a non close-up camera shot.
Mao points: 7/10
Tokyo 10+01 (2003)
Tokyo 0+0
'Tokyo 10+01' has a promising start, introducing colorful characters who will be involved in a game of death. The soundtrack was decent too. However, the film goes downhill due to poor special effects and poor spoof jokes. The title of the film is a spoof of Ocean's Eleven (2001) and there were some references to Brad Pitt in the beginning of the film. Overall, it was unbearable to watch even though the runtime is only 70 minutes.
If you are looking for good spoof films, I recommend Spaceballs (1987) and Kung Pow (2002). Please stay away from 'Tokyo 10+01'.
Mao points: 2/10
Yeonae-sulsa (2005)
A 'feel good' Korean romance comedy made in 2005
Woo Ji-hoon (Yeon Jung-hun) is a magician by profession and playboy by hobby. He has no stable girlfriend since he is a skirt chaser. One day he discovered a spy-cam video clip of him making love in a motel, being released on the Internet. He decides to track the culprit down together with the affected school teacher (Park Jin-hie) he made love to.
A 'feel good' romance comedy with handful of serious moments. When the credits roll, you will see a few hilarious scenes. The final scene is the return of Choi Seong-guk (one of the room-mates in the Korean comedy 'Sex is Zero') trying to charm a girl in the rain.
Mao points: 8/10
Gwok chaan Ling Ling Chat (1994)
Timeless comedy made in 1994
I have watched this movie on cable television re-runs several times and is always amused by the comedy. I have a high humour threshold and have to admit that 'From Bejing With Love' meets my expectations.
The living room scene where Siu Kam (played by Anita Yuen) tries to shoot Ling Ling Chai (played by Stephen Chow) is extremely funny. She was greeted by a reverse shot by the gun. Ling Ling Chai heard the gunshot and turns around to explain to her that the gun shoots the opposite direction. While Ling Ling Chai is testing the gun's silencer, Siu Kam points the gun towards herself and shoots Ling Ling Chai again. To our surprise, she gets shot again. Ling Ling Chai explains that the gun's bullet alternates every shot. Looking defeated and injured, Siu Kam runs comically into the toilet with both her arms badly wounded.
Another scene worth mentioning is when Ling Ling Chai enters the bathroom while Siu Kam is wrapped in a towel. Ling Ling Chai with a smoking pipe and two iron balls resting on his palm, looks cool. (In the early days of Chinese gangsterism, a stereotyped powerful boss usually rotates two iron balls on a palm.) The angry Siu Kam tells him to close the bathroom door. Ling Ling Chai closes the door but he is still inside the bathroom. Siu Kam shouts him to get out and close the door.
Towards the end of the movie, Ling Ling Chai was in a party function and tries to take a glass of wine from the waiter's platter. However someone took it before he has the chance. Then Ling Ling Chai and the waiter looks at the platter, waiting for a miracle to happen. This is actually a parody of the famous Guinness beer commercial endorsed by George Lam.
Made in 1994, this movie is still a classic. With several notable comical 'nonsense' scenes and the funny scene of 'extinguish cigarette butt on a hand' that was repeated in Shaolin Soccer (2001).
Mao points: 9/10
Afrika (2002)
Bubblegum flick about a gang of 4 pretty robbers
If you have watched the Korean action/comedy 'Attack the Gas Station' (1999), you will be laughing at one of the spoof scenes in A.F.R.I.K.A.
In the movie A.F.R.I.K.A, the four girls went to rob a gas station. Turns out that the gas station owner is the guy from 'Attack the Gas Station'. The owner is frustrated that he is always getting robbed and he is always forced to sing aloud. In the 1999 movie, he was robbed by four guys (one of the male robbers, Yu Ji-Tae, went on to be the coolest bad guy in Oldboy).
An average popcorn flick with four pretty girls. I do have to comment that Lee Yu-won (Yo-won) looked gorgeous after styling her hair in the middle of the movie.
Mao points: 5/10
Yeonae-ui mokjeok (2005)
A realistic romance melodrama
The lead actress in this movie, 'Yeonae-ui mokjeok' (international title: Rules of Dating) has grown up since her role as Mido in Oldboy (2003).
Rules of Dating is a realistic romance melodrama about how a teacher ( Park Hae-il) flirt with a female student teacher (Kang Hye-jeong). However in terms of age, the student teacher is much older than the teacher.
The movie starts off slow but picks up in the second hour. Throughout the movie, we get to see the relationship between the two teachers flourish and fluctuate periodically. The interesting bit is that Kang Hye-jeong is already engaged to a doctor and Park Hae-il has a steady girlfriend for 6 years.
Recommended to anyone who likes realistic romance stories without Hollywood special effects.
Mao points: 7/10
Gan-keun gajok (2005)
Terrible comedy. A bigger disgrace that it was made in 2005
Avoid this boring comedy drama about a grandfather's dying wish to see North Korea and South Korea unite. His family members try to make his wish come true in silly slapstick antics because in order to inherit the old man's property, North and South Korea got to unite.
Being made in 2005, this Korean comedy is a great disgrace. There are far more superior films made in the earlier years. My Sassy Girl (2001), Guns & Talks (2001), Wet Dreams (2002), Sex is Zero (2002), just to name a few.
Avoid this movie at all cost. There are other better movies worth watching than to waste your precious life.
Mao points: 3/10
Daenseo-ui sunjeong (2005)
Another romance/drama from South Korea...
Innocent Steps (international title) is a romantic Korean tale about a cute 19 year old girl (Mun Geun-yeong) from China on a dance contract. She is paid to practice and dance with her partner (Park Geon Hyeong) for the upcoming 'KDFA Cup Korea Dancesport Championship'. For the next three months, she trained hard for the competition. Love blossomed, of course. Being professional during the practices, they did not reveal their feelings to each other.
A couple of twists happened and the last 30 minutes proved once again that Korean movies do not bow to mainstream stereotyped story lines or endings. It was a 30% bitter 70% sweet conclusion, not a Hollywood perfect fairy tale. Good flick to watch with your loved one.
Mao points: 7/10
Hwal (2005)
Almost a masterpiece. However the last 10 minutes destroyed it.
From the award winning director, Kim Ki-duk, that gave us 'The Isle', 'Address Unknown', 'Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring', 'Samaritan Girl', '3-Iron'.
In this film 'The Bow: Hwal', the old man, the young girl and the young guy all do not have names. However the film still breezes through without identity crisis or confusion. With absolutely NO lines from the old man and the young girl, all we hear from these two characters were whispers to people's ears, laughter and crying. However, it was a masterpiece of absent dialogue. With subtle facial expressions and actions (such as aiming of the bow, striking off calendar dates, holding the girl's hand during sleep, re-construction of bed), it spoke much much louder than words. A favourite cinematic style by Kim Ki-duk.
The director, Kim Ki-duk, has also done a good job in creating unbearable suspense on what the old man whispered to the 'fortune seeking' people. I wonder if the Korean DVD will reveal these tidbits.
The music used in the film is simple yet moving. I believe the musical instrument used was Er-hu, an ancient Chinese 'violin'.
< MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD > < MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD >
In my opinion, the last 10 minutes destroyed the film. It was almost a masterpiece from Kim Ki-duk. The idea of supernatural elements and the old man's spirit having sex with the girl is too much to accept. After having sex, the old man spirit allows the girl and the guy to go back to shore while he sinks together with his ship. It was a great film without a great ending. In comparison, '3-Iron' had a stronger ending than 'The Bow'.
Mao points: 9/10
Qi jian (2005)
No one mentioned Kenji Kawai the music composer yet..
I am a sound guy and always feel that audio plays a big part in the success of a film. Look at Braveheart or Lord of the Rings or Moulin Rouge.
Seven Swords soundtrack is composed by Kenji Kawai. A talented Japanese that has composed music for Japanese Anime: Ranma ½, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, Ghost in the Shell, Blue Seed, Patlabor 2 & 3, Gunparade March, etc and movies for The Ringu, The Ringu 2, Dark Water, Princess Blade, etc.
Kenji Kawai is one of the top Japanese music composer, together with the ranks of Yoko Kanno, Joe Hisaishi, Nobuo Uematsu (godfather of Final Fantasy I to XII music).
I won't comment too much on Seven Swords story itself because I did not read the novel written by Liang Yu-Shen. It will be unfair to criticize how accurate or inaccurate Tsui Hark based his movie on. Did Donnie Yen's character 'Chu Zhaonan' and the mysterious girl spoke Korean in the original novel? Or it is Tsui Hark's idea to add some Korean flavor, hoping to break into the Korean market?
I do want to say that the fighting scenes are too tightly edited. Too many different camera angle cuts during a single fight scenes make my eyes sore. I believe the quick cuts was edited to make the characters look more skilled and smooth because in actual filming, they have difficulties handling the heavy swords or stunts.
Mao points: 7/10
Cheotsarang sasu gwolgidaehoe (2003)
A great cast can't save this horrible movie
Yun Dong-geun, a veteran actor (Who's Got the Tape, Marrying the Mafia), Cha Tae-hyun (My Sassy Girl, Lover's Concerto), and the beautiful Son Ye-jin (A Moment to Remember, Lover's Converto, The Classic) are not enough to turn the tables of this horrible movie. The story is plain Grade 'C' boring and resorts to male pubic hair anecdotes to capture our attention in the first 20 minutes of the movie. It failed.
Seeing that Crazy First Love was produced in 2003 made me feel more disgusted. There were far more better romance/comedy Korean movies made before 2003. Timeless classics such as 'My Sassy Girl' (2001), 'My Wife is a Gangster' (2001), 'Sex is Zero' (2002), 'Marrying the Mafia' (2002) can easily topple Crazy First Love in terms of entertainment value and storyline. I thought 'Wet Dreams' (2002) was done in bad taste, full of male organ and nonsense jokes. However Crazy First Love brought the definition of bad taste to a whole new level.
There are better Korean movies to watch. Do not waste your life on this movie.
Mao points: 2/10
Failan (2001)
Another masterpiece from Korea
With gems such as My Sassy Girl, Friend, Guns & Talks, Il Mare, Joint Security Area, Oldboy, it is no surprise why Hollywood is camping to pounce on any remake scripts they could get their rich hands on.
It only takes a petty sum of money (insignificant in Hollywood's eyes, considering how much they spent on special effects alone) to buy the remake rights for a Korean movie. How much do you think you have to fork out if you request to do a remake to Godfather or Matrix? The rich-poor gap is clearly shown in this situation. Hollywood will never allow anyone to remake Matrix unless it is a very handsome sum of money.
If you enjoyed Failan, I highly recommend other Korean movies such as A Moment to Remember, Il Mare, Ditto and My Brother. They are more or less the same type of genre.
Mao points: 8/10