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Reviews
Rurôni Kenshin: Densetsu no saigo-hen (2014)
Very well done fight scenes
Fans of the manga may have issues with the story, but since I don't know the source material, it didn't bother me.
The key moments are well done, but in between those key moments things tend to drag on. I understand these are manga characters, so they tend to be on the unrealistic side. But something just feels off in the delivery of the dialogs, they seemed... disconnected. But once I got to those key moments I was thoroughly entertained.
The fights are fantasy style katana combat, but very creative and well choreographed. As a fan of martial arts movies, I enjoyed them very much. The "final boss fight" was fantastic and worthy of the climax of the trilogy. Bravo.
If you like action, especially martial arts action, I say this trilogy is worth a watch, but just keep in mind this came from comic books. As with most action movies, if you look too deep everything falls apart, so just sit back and enjoy.
Another Life (2019)
Good premise, bad writing
I'm a sci-fi fan, and I was about to give up on this show. Somehow I managed to finish it with some fast forwarding. The latter part of the second season did get slightly better. Still below average in my opinion.
The overall premise and the mystery build up is interesting.
The acting, I felt some actors/actresses did well, while others didn't do so well. But overall it was good enough to tell the story.
The science behind it is like a bad joke. They clearly didn't even bother to do the most rudimentary homework. Even as pretend science, it is BAD.
The large plot points were ok. A bit disjointed, but alright.
The details leading from one plot point to another didn't make sense. They just jam things together and use paper thin reasons to move things along. Lazy writing.
Character development is BAD. Drama for no reason other than "insert drama here". This creates unlikable characters that audience do not identify with, and don't care what happens to them.
Despite the seemingly low budget set and FX, I believe they have the necessary ingredients to make a decent show. But the poor writing, that ruined it.
Resident Evil (2022)
I wanted to like this show, but I can't
I'm a sci-fi fan, not exactly a Resident Evil fan. So I know there are details that Resident Evil fans dislike about this show, and rightfully so. But for me, my perspective is I treat this as a horror sci-fi show. In a way, that allows me to enjoy the show despite the departure from the core Resident Evil world.
But I still didn't enjoy it.
The big story, the world that was supposedly from Resident Evil, those are fine. The acting is actually not bad for a money-grab sci-fi horror show that came from a video game. I feel many of the actors, including the two teens, did a good enough job for this type of show.
But the dialog, the character building? OMG, that made me fast forward. Various personal drama conflicts and character obstacles were tossed in there for no reason and didn't make sense. All the reason props to go the actors for powering through such trash and actually doing a decent job.
I assume the two teens are the main characters. A few episodes into it I was rooting for those characters to die and make onto the Darwin Award list of that fictional universe. Why create such unlikable main characters? Maybe the writers' goal was to build plight and have the audience feel bad for them. But it did the opposite because the teens came across as entitled idiots.
I would have happily watched the show even if it's just mediocre everything. But the characters' emotional reactions do not fit the narrative. That's just lazy writing, or untalented writing, or maybe both. It's so bad that even with my low bar that still made the show unwatchable.
I give it a 3 for the actors efforts to make this work. But the writing is a pile of vomit.
Mulan (2020)
High quality but bland, not sure what they tried to accomplish
High quality, nice cinematography. Outside of that, pretty bland.
"Mulan" story has a lot to live up to: the original Chinese story, the original Disney cartoon, and the magical fairy tale Disney expectations. This one seems to be even more ambitious by adding martial art movie elements.
The end result is a movie that didn't have enough of any of those, and is a strange blend that has no appeal. Should have just picked one focus and ran with it.
Honestly if this were not about Hua Mulan but some random Chinese girl, it would be a typical high budget but mediocre movie. It felt the "Mulan" name was superimposed so they could get the money from the fans of the original Disney Mulan cartoon, but then didn't put in fan favorite elements to please them.
If I treat this not as a Hua Mulan story, I'd give it 5. But given the expectation of the target audience that they are trying to monetize, I give it a 4. Serious original Mulan cartoon fans, or even Disney fans, probably would rank this even lower.
Jin Gang Wang: Si wang jiu shu (2013)
B Movie With Decent Fighting
Light on story, boring dialog, but that's okay because this is an action film. Acting is cringingly bad, even for an action film.
This is basically a martial arts film made with a bunch of stunt men doing acting duty. The ones that do look the part/have decent acting, unfortunately can't fight. When the scene is stunt man vs stunt man, the fighting looks good, even when it's just an unimportant background fight. When the scene calls for stunt man vs non stunt man... the fight is boring even when it's the "featured" fight.
Spoilers coming, although really there's not much to spoil. The hero has to fight three "bosses".
The first boss fight is against a guy suffering from gigantism, like Andre the Giant, except without the athleticism. The guy basically poses in an uncoordinated way while the hero beats on him. This is a "look" actor, for his imposing size, no acting skills, no stunt work skills, boring fight.
The second boss fight "Crazy Monkey" is actually crazy good. After you've managed to survive his acting, you will be rewarded with a very well choreographed and creative fight. This is a "stunt" actor, just like the hero. No looks, no acting skills, but excellent stunt work.
The third and final fight is against the boss a.k.a. steroid boy. I had high hopes for steroid boy. He managed to pull off a menacing and driven persona, and looks quite impressively intimidating. Unfortunately this guy is no stunt man. He's slow, and not used to martial arts movements. Studio magic was used to fix this such as speeding up the frames, to varying amounts of success. But overall the fight ended up being pretty boring.
This film gets a 6 from the strength of the Crazy Monkey fight alone, it is very well done. I would say fast forward and just watch the Crazy Monkey fight.
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007)
Wow this is bad... Do not watch...
I was channel surfing and decided to check out this "Dungeon Siege" thing, since I played the game. I wasn't expecting anything, since most movies that come from games are bad.
After a few minutes of it, I decided to move on, it was as bad as I expected to be. But then I saw Jason Statham, Ray Liotta, Burt Reynolds, and other recognizable actors. Given that it's the quality of a B movie, I was really surprised to see the class of actors they were able to get. I was intrigued by this and somehow sat through the rest of the movie. But unfortunately it never improved beyond bad.
A bad director can make ANY actor look bad. This was a very amateurish film, and without the charm of a B movie. I thought it was funny that Uwe Boll would proudly display his name after the movie was done. Maybe he actually thought this was a great movie, something to be proud of?
Don't waste your time with this movie.
Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
Entertaining, intense, but unrealistic
I very much enjoyed this movie. The pacing was excellent. It kept me at the edge of my seat the whole time. Although the story telling was sacrificed a bit to keep up the intensity. But it's a sacrifice that's understandable.
The acting of all the main characters were excellent. I thought Gerald Butler did a great job.
The story itself, however, was unrealistic. Lawyers having their own interest in mind and not representing their clients properly? Justice not served in the court of law due to technicalities and back room deals? That part does happen in real life. But what the "law abiding citizen" was capable of would make him a super villain with ultra intellect in a comic book. Also, the burden of preventing further actions by Clyde fell on the shoulders of Nick, who is only a lawyer. Realistically any clues uncovered should have been handed over to law enforcement. But this was done for the dramatic effect; the two nemesis facing each other.
The ending was a bit anti-climatic. But the resolution of this movie is kind of tricky, since there were really no clear-cut good guys. I'm not sure how a "better" ending would play out.
But it was intense, entertaining, and I would recommend it.
Jui gaai lui sai (1988)
Not a very good comedy
This is a romantic comedy movie. It revolves around three friends that fell in love with this pretty lady and the situations it created when they tried to one-up each other to get her attention.
The acting was not bad, given the ludicrous situations. But the leading lady was horrible. From my perspective, she wasn't even all that attractive either. But it could be due to the 80's style clothing, hair, and make-up.
Story had a pretty good setup in the beginning, some funny moments, and looked promising. But once all the setup jokes were done, and switched to "story resolution" mode, it became really boring. On top of that, the way the story was resolved was very contrived and not believable, and they went out of their way to wrap up with a goody goody happy ending that was just very forced.
Lung joi tin aai (1989)
Not a bad martial arts action flick
This is a fairly old movie, I just recently saw it. I have to admit there's some nostalgia on my part to all the 80's scenery, movie style, and cheesy-ness.
This is an action film. The story is basic with unlikely events/plot holes, but serves the purpose for the action and fights to take place. However this should be no surprise; this is how action films generally are.
The fights were not the best I've seen, but they're pretty good; mostly gritty and realistic type fight scenes. I was a bit surprised because I thought this style only became popular much later, when martial arts became a common element in American action films. For example some of "Tiger"'s fights like the one where he choked the guy to kill him as opposed to using some sort of fancy looking kung-fu technique. Because of that to me some of the choreography actually look sort of modern.
Although I have to admit I was rooting for Tiger the whole time. Jet Li's character was too goody-two-shoe.
Moon ching sap dai huk ying (1994)
A bit boring actually
I found this movie from the hilarious "kung fu porn" clip floating around the internet. So I was expecting more of the same, perhaps some sort of cliché kung fu background story with goofy wire-fu sex.
Instead, it was a cliché story about adultery and wrongfully framed. It has torture, which I don't particularly care for, naked boobs, soft-core sex, and lots of mediocre story telling.
There were some comedic moments that made me laugh, but really the highlight by far is still the wire-fu sex in the forest scene.
I would classify this move as drama actually. I ended up fast-forwarding through some of the torture and drama scenes to get to the unsurprising ending.
Mediocre movie.
Mongol (2007)
Not bad, but not quite what I expected
It's a well done film, based on Genghis Khan's early life. If I'm correct, little is known of this, so I'm sure the story has quite a bit of fictional elements to it. But it's fine, this is a movie, not a documentary.
This movie isn't about the battles. The smaller skirmishes were done pretty well for a movie that doesn't focus on armed conflicts, the large battle was lacking.
This movie also isn't about the strategy, politics, or how Genghis Kahn was able to unite the various tribes (this was what I thought the movie was going to be about).
Instead, the movie was about Genghis Khan's personal life drama. It's about the hardships he endured and his unbreakable spirit (with a healthy dose of luck from his god Tengris).
I'm not going say this is a bad thing, because although personally I'm not into personal dramas, especially for a movie about a great conqueror, others may like it. My girlfriend for example enjoyed the romance element they tossed in there.
However, my only true gripe of the movie is that the story is done in the Underpants Gnome fashion.
Step 1: Get kicked around
Step 2: ??
Step 3: Have warriors that will fight for you!!
But despite the inclusion of Underpants Gnome's step two in the movie, everything else was pretty well done, so it gets a 6 from me.
The Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
Good martial action with Hollywood cliché
This is a family oriented action comedy film. Enough said. Some people have unrealistic expectations. Story? Dialog? Acting? Come on people, this is an action flick.
Think of a generic family oriented action comedy -- yes with the cliché cheese, toned-down violence, story that a 10 year old can appreciate... this is it, except with Chinese fairy tale flavoring.
The martial art sequences were EXCELLENT. Especially the fight between Jet Li and Jackie Chan. It was definitely one of the top movie martial art fights that I've seen. Outside of HK movies, I've seen some memorable fights. They tend to be brutal and raw a la Bourne series, which I appreciate as well. This is the type that's carefully choreographed and stylized with very distinct Chinese kung fu/wushu techniques, which is excellent for me, I miss seeing these types of fights. Definitely what I would expect out of Jackie Chan and Jet Li. The girls did a fairly good job as well, as with the kid, but obviously with lesser martial arts background compared to J&J, they tend to do more "generic" type fights, i.e. moves where you can't really tell what style of martial arts it's from.
Cinematography was pretty good as well. Some CGI, but not over done considering that this is after all a tale with magic.
Outside of that, the fact that it's family oriented ruined it for me (hence a 7). I like R rated action films where there's no need to hold back. I would have liked to see J&J collaborate in a more serious movie marketed towards adults.
In summary, expect a movie made for kids. If you don't like kid movies, you won't like the story. I would have enjoyed this movie just the same if they had cut out all the scenes between the fights. If you like to watch martial art sequences, for example, if I say the Muay Thai vs Capoeira scene at the burning temple in The Protector and you know exactly what I'm talking about, then you'll probably enjoy this movie, but you should try napping between fights.