brn0081 Reviews

Fearless (2006)

great way to finish

[8/10 · 27 January 2006]

"Fearless" (Hua Yuan Jia <- the name of the movie in Chinese is actually the name of the main character) is a movie that's (according to the trailers) produced by the people who brought us "Hero", choreographed by the person who did "The Matrix" (Yuen Wo Ping) and is Jet Li's final "Martial Arts Epic".

The movie starts with a bang. Quite literally... after a brief prologue-ish type text, and panning through a CG Shanghai, era 1910, the movie goes straight into a spectacular display of martial arts of Jet Li (the little man) versus the big boys (people about twice his size....)

...A fantastic beginning, methinks. However, this may also be true for those people who have seen a lot of Jet Li movies, I can't help but think, some of the time, during the fight scenes, "I swear I've seen him do that before...". Don't let that distract you from this film though, as I believe that Ronny Yu (the director) compliments Jet Li's style and even adds an element of power that never really seems there (apart from in Fist of Legend... which is a sort of remake of Fist of Fury... which is a story about Chen Zhen who was Hua Yuan Jia's student... confused? You should be.... you should be.... (at this point I should say that Chen Zhen was fictional but Hua Yuan Jia is not...)). That is actually a roundabout way of me saying that the beginning was great...

The rest of the film then goes into the past and tells the story of how YuanJia got to that point of playing with the big boys... And I must admit that for the first time since Once Upon a Time in China (the first one), I actually believed that Jet Li was acting... He starts off as an arrogant and strong-willed man, who eventually, through a chain of events turns into a weak, pathetic and destroyed man before finishing off as an honourable, deep and heroic man after spending time reassessing himself and the world around him. It was great to watch because the progression was believable... ^^,

The film itself was well paced and well shot. The action scenes were brilliant throughout and the music really made you feel the moment. This film is a great way to finish off his (Jet Li) martial arts movie career, mixing philosophy with martial arts (as it was meant to be really). It's just a shame that some of his US movies tarnished his filmography (let us please forget, "The One"), but Jet Li is leaving the martial arts world with a CRUNCH and a BANG...

Go watch this movie. It is great (though I didn't like the way they put 'wushu' in the subtitles instead of 'martial arts'... but that could be just me....) :D

Seven Swords (2005)

...not quite what I expected, but still enjoyable...

[7/10 · 29 July 2005]

Being a big fan of Tsui Hark films, I had been looking forward to this film for a long time, and even though Leon Lai is in the movie, I still thought it would be watchable.

The film was shot quite beautifully, with certain scenes showing some fantastic imagery. However, do not take this to mean that the film was full of beautiful landscapes, no. The way the film was shot was matched fully well with the barren lands that the majority of the scenes take place in.

The music was captivating and suited the moment when you actually noticed it was playing. In my opinion, the typical 'Hero' theme in this film was a perfect mix of cheesiness and just plain, pure brilliance.

The fight scenes were fast and furious, but sometimes, due to the camera work, it was difficult to see what had become of the amazing choreography.

At this particular moment in time, I can only really think of two bad things about the film, the first being pacing and the second being the timeline/editing. The film tends to jump from scene to scene fairly well, but there were certain moments where it is obvious that something was missing, be it dialogue or scenes, and this made the pacing factor unbearable as it seemed forever for the film to get anywhere.

Overall though, I guess if you like wuxia movies, then this might appeal to you, but I still feel quite doubtful that this would actually appeal to a larger audience.

The swords are awesome by the way.... ;) Let's hope that they release a better DVD version though...

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005)

...doesn't quite fit the hype.... didn't really expect it to either....

[5/10 · 23 May 2005]

As an avid Star Wars fan, I am inclined more to the original Trilogy than the prequels, but I decided I would try and set aside any cast I set for it, and attempt to watch this film as it is… and to be fair to it, I wasn't as disappointed with it as I thought I would be. At first, I was expecting something as bad as Episode II (which in my opinion was over 2 hours of complete rubbish), but overall, I found that this was by far the best of the prequels, which admittedly isn't really that much of an achievement, but it's a start.

It was strange to see the film's time-line progress so quickly and without indications, and what I mean by this is that Padme starts the film like she ended the second (albeit with a Leia hairdo) and what seems like 10 minutes down the line, she's got this big belly…. Where'd the time go?? Then of course, there was the supposed build up of the love between Anakin and Padme, which in all honesty was hardly done well at all in the previous episode. Yet, in the moment with no dialogue, just music and images, you could see the bond, but sadly, only during that moment because once the interaction between Anakin and Padme came about, the bond seemingly disappears.

The tie-ins to the original trilogy were mixed in my opinion. Some were good, but others were feeble… For instance, Palpatine swivelling in the chair at the beginning a la Return of the Jedi was nice, amusing for the irony of it all…. The first Death Star taking 17 years to build, but the second Death Star only taking 4 just beggared belief….

However, after all this is said and done, the action scenes (and particularly the lightsaber duels) were most enjoyable and were cut into the non-action scenes quite regularly so as to keep you entertained. It's probably quite harsh to constantly blame George Lucas on ruining Star Wars, because to be fair, nothing he did with these prequels would ever match up to the originals. Overall, I think if you watch this film as the end of the prequels, it's not bad, but if you try to watch it as part of the saga, it loses somewhat of the finesse that the originals had, despite the hammy acting. But at least it's better than Episode II….

Alien vs. Predator (2004)

not for the fans...

[1/10 · 12 September 2004]

I was most apprehensive coming into this film, being a fan of Alien and Predator, I was really hoping for something good, but knew deep down that it would not be so... and after about 30mins, I knew my first feelings for this film were correct.

Die-hard fans will more than likely find this a farce of a collection of classic films (bar Resurrection). There are certain times where the imitation pulls off, the claustrophobia (but only slightly), the mazed corridors, the lighting, but the sheer terror, tension and suspense just doesn't quite hit the right levels.

I would recommend this film for general cinema goers, but not the fans of the originals, you can't trick us with this pile of drivel, wait for the rental!

2/10