Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

Ratings: 7.5/10

Film Class: B

Genre: Action Suspense

Set in 690 AD, an exiled detective is resummoned by Empress Wu to investigate a series of mysterious cases involving spontaneous human combustion. Detective Dee teams up with Officer Shangguan and Commander Bei to uncover the truth behind the murders.

This movie felt like a chinese version of Sherlock Holmes fused with a chinese martial arts film. Storyline was easy to follow and though it wasn't as suspenseful as Sherlock Holmes, the action scenes compensated for it. I was impressed with the CG as well as the engaging plot which didn't fail to keep the excitement up throughout. Love the "supernatural" aspect of it which made this film distinctive in its own right. I have to commend, whether it was intentional or not, the director for making a subtle effort in concealing the twist in the movie.

Despite the ridiculously-looking eyebrow makeups for the lead ladies (Empress Wu and Officer Shangguan), the casting wardrobes were impressively elaborate. For the entire 2 hours of screentime, the film was able to take me on a journey back to the dynasty era with a hint of mystery in it. One of its kind, been a while since a mandarin movie was able to deliver such a spectacle of delight and awe.

Outrage

Rating: 7.2/10

Film Class: C

Genre: Mafia, Drama

A film about the bloodbath among the Yakuza gangster groups in Japan. I got to learn more about them, about their "culture" and about how influential they are in Japan. The take-home message from this movie is that the Yakuza gangs are ruthless, unreasonable, and have a s***load of time on their hands.

Treat this movie like a documovie (hybrid of movies and documentaries) and you'll be in for a good time. But if you expect something like Eastern Promies, you'll be gravely disappointing. Senseless violence, irrational consequences and an utter lack of "story". But it's quite an oxymoron, because it's what makes this film unique in its own sense. I believe it was the intentional message of the director, as what he was trying to bring across to the audience was to understand the way the Yakuzas work.

*major spoilers ahead* At the end of it, it felt like the entire movie was going around in circles, with no purpose... almost as if one would have wasted 109 mins of their time. But on closer scrutiny, it was more educational than squirmish or senseless. The Yakuza's main boss is in charge of looking over the different yakuza groups. All of the groups run independently, but are governored by the main boss (kinda like a royal family). The different groups have to answer to the main boss, and yet he plotted a blood feud between the clans. As to his exact purpose of doing so, I can only assume he's just so high up on the hierarchy that he just wants to see what would come out of the little dispute, at the same time to prove that his foresight was right.

What started from a molehill blasted into a mountain, before you knew it, everyone was killing off each other's clan members despite the clans being "sworn brothers". It just really showed me how there's no such thing as "blood/sworn" brothers in the gangster business... There's backstabbing everywhere and everyone else is plotting ways to move up in the hierarchy. I was lost during the first 30 mins of the movie, with all the different clan names and character names... but was gradually able to piece together the "big picture".

The Yakuzas are so influential even the police are working for them. They have so many connections there's just no way you can run, or hide from them. The seemingly most useless character in the movie reigned supreme at the end. So bottomline is, always understand the system, cos' by doing so, even if you're a seemingly worthless dog, there's always a door of opportunity for you to seize complete control. And if you wanna survive in Japan, don't be a Yakuza, be a corrupted policeman instead.... Warped take-home messages but the main idea of this movie I hope, is simply for squirmish education.

You don't have to be too affected with the gore because most of the time, they are cut away scenes, without visual but with sound. And yes, it's definitely more of a guy movie becaue I doubt any females will speak fondly of it.

The Other Guys

Rating: 8.0/10

Film Class: B

Genre: Action Comedy

Two New York detectives who are complete opposites pair up to uncover a conspiracy after the city's top cops went out of action. Period.

Simple plot, made confusing by the "conspiracy" and weak twists in the movie. At the end of the movie, even though I didn't quite understand the development, the one thing which really blew me away was the synergy between Will Farrell and Mark Wahlberg. I'm not a fan of Will Farrell, in fact I used to believe all his movies were flop until this film. Mark Wahlberg, on the other hand, is a star which I really like and its so refreshing to see the lamest side of him in this movie.

The humor was simply explosive!! I kept laughing throughout and not only were there tears of laughter, there was also cheek and stomach cramps from the mixture of lame and witty humor. Fitting for most audience, those bored, those having a bad day, those who wants a good time, those chilling out with friends, even good for couples and those who can't tolerate spoofs but loves a movie which doesn't require too much thinking. It has been a while since a movie of such explosive humor has been out, so don't miss it!! Oh oh, and did I mention that Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson were equally as corny as well?

The Karate Kid

Rating: 7.6/10

Film Class: B

Genre: Action

A Detriot mother and son moves to Beijing because of Mrs Parker's job. Young Dre Parker finds it hard to fit in in a country that doesn't speak his native language and to make matters worse, is bullied by the local students. With the help of his apartment's technician, Jackie Chan, he was able to fend off the bullies... while under the guidance of Jackie Chan trains himself up for a coming Kung Fu tournament to settle the "feud" caused.

Being a 2 hour movie, it adequately covered the important aspects of a good movie such as character development and a decent story plot. I was kept engaged throughout the movie, and the movie didn't feel draggy or lengthy... on the contrary it kept me wanting more. Though the only downside of the movie was the nearly abrupt ending due to the lack of character follow ups, everything else about the movie was a huge thumbs up. This movie exceeded my expectations, as I was ignorantly affected by the general public's ratings.

Good mix of light-hearted humor, bits of romance, a good load of action, a fair deal of emphasis on family ties and friendship, couple of scenic cinematography and most importantly, it touches on the true nature of Kung Fu. Even though it was set in Beijing, unlike most Hollywood movies which veered out of its "home", this movie didn't feel like a cheap production. Though I'm not a huge fan of movies with features adolescence casting, this is an exception.

Possibly one of Jackie Chan's strongest performances in a Hollywood movie, and this movie definitely marks the rise of the young stars, Jaden Smith, Han Wen Wen (his crush) and Wang Zhengwei (the leader of the bullies). My last opinion of it is that this movie shouldn't even bank on the Karate Kid franchise, since its not really the fighting styles of Karate which are featured inside but more of Kung Fu. So don't expect any Karate, (only 1 scene about it, only 10 secs about its mention) expect scaled down Kung Fu (only appropriate since the casts are all still so young!)!!

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Rating: 6.5/10

Film Class: B

Genre: Action

Before Resident Evil: Afterlife, all the resident evil sequels defied convention... because unlike most sequels which rarely top the first in its series, Resident Evil just got better and better. That was before Afterlife came out that is. Personally, I didn't like the first 2 installments. The 3rd was pretty good, surprisingly, and for the forth and newest installment, sadly it was pretty disappointing.

Alice, supposedly "invincible" because she had managed to effectively control the T-virus inside of her, turned more human in this movie. After turning up at the safe haven Acardian and finding no one but Claire Redfield, she was about to give up all hope of finding survivors when she came across a group of survivors stranded on top of an abandoned prison. Not sure if it was a pun intended, but Wentworth Miller is once again "imprisoned" momentarily in this movie.

I didn't like the graphics at all, even though they claimed in their movie trailer that it was based on new technology (no idea what it is but I thought what it was publicising was more of making the first ever live-action video-game movie in 3D). CG looked faked, and the slow-mo matrix style of filming was anything but cool. Perhaps the greatest disappointment for all Resident Evil fans out there was how Chris Redfield was portrayed. There was absolutely zero hype about him... no credit made to him, he didn't even have his own action scene. All of this despite him being one of the most "outstanding" characters in Resident Evil. Even Jill Valentine was out of the picture (cant' remember where she disappeared to).

This installment plays a pivotal role in the Resident Evil franchise because it steers the RE series away from the horror genre and more towards the action genre. And guess what, there's an enormous cliffhanger at the end of the movie... Will definitely be watching part 5 in the near future, but it's not so much of interest anymore, more of "completion's" sake. Sure hope the director will up the standards for the next sequel to please the dismayed Resident Evil fans out there.

VIllon's Wife

Rating: 6.8/10

Film Class: C

Genre: Drama

A slow-moving tale of a wife's benevolence despite her obnoxious yet talented husband. Takoko Matsu stars as the perservering, magnanimous wife who atones for her husband's thef by working at the bar which he stole money from, run by an elderly couple. Her husband, Otani, though extremely talented in poetry writing, treats his wife like little respect and is paranoid about a make believe scandal.

This is a movie that's melodramatic, slow-pacing, and even at times, unrealistic and extremely twisted. It kinda reminded me of the famous artist, Vincent Van Gogh.. talented yet eccentric... Unlike Van Gogh, Otani isn't suffering from mental illness, but more of depression... which once again reminded me of the "sekai-kai" concept from Evangelion. The japanese term "sekai-kai" sinply means that the protagonist in the anime or manga mirrors their creator life. So it was such a "dark and twisted" film that it almost felt the director himself was suffering from depression... to have been able to come up with such a warped perspective.

The movie which centers around the female protagonist, unfortunately lacked good acting. The female lead wasn't convincing in her role and she was unable to bring out her character's emotional torment. Too much forced smiles, and unsettling facial emotions which wasn't quite in synch with the scene's mood. Well, all is not loss as the most important factor in pulling me to catch the movie wasn't so much the story or the cast, but the setting. One can never get enough of such a "classic"-styled setting. It really brings you to another era of Japanese culture... and deserves high praise based solely on that (another such movie which is able to accomplish that is Ip Man 2 - old chinese era). It brought me to another world, a world of stillness, silence and despair.

But that's about it. The setting and its ability to zap me into their world, not the professional acting, nor the engaging scripting or storyplot. Didn't quite understand the purpose of adding the first scene... probably the director wanted to attempt to explain the husband's messed up childhood and the basis behind the movie title... Villon... wasn't even explained. Well, it could just be me... might work for you, but I'm sure chances are, it won't work for most. A boring movie is hard is pull off as an arty farty one unless one's delusional enough to insist on a second opinion.

Frozen

Rating: 7.4/10

Film Class: C

Genre: Thriller

Three friends are stranded on a chairlift during a weekend skiing get-together. It will take a week before the ski resort opens again and to make matters worse, no one knows that they are stuck up there. What will they do to survive the ordeal?

A terrifying and intense film about what one of the worst case scenarios to be in. Similar genre movies such as Rogue Crocodile and Open Waters have managed to deliver, but hardly astound. This is possibly one of the better movies under such categories because not only was it able to keep me at the edge of my seat, there was a good deal of character development. The story development was equally as impressive... it started from a light-hearted mood and gradually twisted into a high-paced emotional roller coster ride.

Throughout the film, the backgrounds behind the characters were revealed and though seemingly unnecessary since by then I was already feeling so much each individual character owing to the tactful buildup, it added that extra element to it. I was all prepared to give this movie an unexpected high rating but was held back when my anxiety went downhill from 3/4s of the movie. The last quarter of the movie was anti-climaxal, and I personally think it didn't do justice to the top-notch acting the cast contributed.

It may not be a totally awesome plot, but it brings realism to the situation they were in. And to really distinguish this film from similarly genre-ed movies, the casts pulled off their roles convincingly and commendably. This movie kinda felt like a meek slasher "gore" film (with all the frostbites) mixed with a good load of emotional suspense.

*spoilers ahead* The "humiliation" the lead actress felt when she had to pee in her pants and how a simple mistake of resting her bare hands on the cold bar when she was sleeping were not overly played. Despite several goofs in the movie, it's still one that is decently realistic and not overly exaggerated. Even though this is clearly a Grade C movie, as it's a fairly low-budget film with only 4 actual different settings, it delivers more than a punch... it's sure to leave you with a gritting "frozebite"...