Movie Review: Flashpoint

It’s been a long time since I watched a Hong Kong movie. Thankfully, Flashpoint wasn’t anywhere disappointing.

Flashpoint sort of stripped down to the basics.
A simple police and thief plot.
Add a liberal dose of real martial arts in the form of violent fighting (thus the NC16 rating).
Testosterone fueled characters driven by ego and all those macho b*****t.

This movie really serves to showcase Krav Maga and free-style fighting (correct me if I am wrong on this)

Hong Kong does this kind of movie so well all the time. Simple plot, police and thief, real kungfu display, testosterone laden cockiness in every character. It’s a great “Leave-you-brain-behind-and-bring-your-balls” kind of movie. You could watch it over and over again for the action.

Review: Transformers

Not bad lah. Quite entertaining if you don’t cross-reference the old Transformer cartoons.

But hor, if you do, quite pek-chek one.

How they get their vehicle form practically came from the Beast Wars. Scan scan here and there can liao.

The transforming is just too stylo-mylo until it is confusing and is dunno for what lor.

And donch have that “yee-yee-or-or” transforming sound.

Then hor, other than Bumblebee and Optimus Prime hor, all the other transformers cannot recognize one! Only hear their name, then you “huh” to yourself lor.

The old cartoon hor, they fight in the barren lands. In the movie, the Transformers is FIBUA (Fighting In Built Up Area) trained one.

Starscream is not red colour one! Pui! Liddat how to recognize? Then he only got one line. Then fight here, fight there already, stand on top of some roof see dunno what show. Isn’t he supposed to try and usurp Megatron’s position as leader of the Decepticons?

Frenzy hor last time was a cassette tape that will jump out of Shockwave who is the radio and cassette player robot. Now hor, he become some stupid ninja robot, can throw shurikens one! And hor, he now upgrade from cassette tape to cd player lor. Then after that can even upgrade to a mobile phone. Then what about Shockwave? Obsolete liao have to sell to karang guni is it?

Talk about Megatron hor, I think they confuse with Galvatron, lor. Megatron where can transform into aeroplane Star Wars X-Wing one? And he donch have his sibeh twa-kee cannon on his hand. See? How to recognize is Megatron?

Bumblebee since when become some stupid American car? American car sales cannot make it say so. What? Scared Volkswagen business too good is it? Then halfway can upgrade his car model some more.

Then the Transformers shio-parh always kena jump cut to some other scene one.
If lucky it jump cut to Megan Fox, if not lucky jump cut to dunno some bo liao human scene. Then suddenly jump cut again and the Autobot transformer win the fight liao. I thought should be like wrestling, got finishing move one mah?
Huh? What? No budget to animate the fighting scene footage?

Then hor, then hor, this worst part hor. They do the Transformers until so detail hor, but then hor, cannot see one! Megatron transform to his sibeh twa-kee cannon cannot see, Starscream cannot see properly, Everyone also cannot see properly.

At least they got show Megan Fox properly.

But really, if you put aside all these things above, good movie lah.

Pirates of the Caribbean - At World’s End

Last time we left off, the Jack Sparrow got swallowed by the kraken and the rest of the gang went off to find a witch and an old friend for help.

Fast forward, with a new captain, they find a pirate from Singapore to try and find a map to Jack Sparrow. At the same time, a naval fleet is out to kill off all pirates with the Flying Dutchman captained by sotong face, Davey Jones. So everybody is trying to outsmart everybody else and everything is just one beautiful mess. In the end, a significant character became an undead and can only appear every ten years, much like the 牛郎织女 story, but the ten years trumps our once a year legend, well, ten times over.

My say? Go watch it! Damn entertaining lor. Vely funny. All the fights damn ping-ping-piang-piang one! See already damn shiok! The finale hor, ships sandwich one ship and ka-ba-boom! Sibeh spectacular lor!
Like Mr Brown, I also wish they had given more screen time to Chow Yun Fatt, because his character, Sao Feng was so well-portrayed.

Anyway, stay till after the end of the credits. Got some boh liao stuff to watch that will tell you that there should not be Pirates 4 even though everybody seem to be out to get something again.

Review - SPIDER-MAN 3

Spider-man brings forth fond memories of a close friend who fell in love with the character. What saddens me is that he will never watch it with us.

Sticking to the progression of the comic, especially in the aspects of villains, the third instalment of Spider-man was really something worth watching. With the advancement of technology for special effects, everything looks more realistic and seamless to the surrounding environment. The sequences are more spectacular and incredible. (Hey, we are talking about The AMAZING Spider-man here.) Of course, almost everybody knows by now there’s the new Goblin, Sandman and Venom.

Also true to the comic series, the inner struggles that Peter Parker a.k.a. Spider-man were very well-portrayed in the movie… Well, and maybe accelerated and disjointed. The movie is like a patch work of conveniences that allows the Spider-man story to be told in 140 minutes. The original Spider-man comic tells of Spidey battling in some faraway universe before returning to Earth with the black suit who brings the fast asleep Peter Parker on a midnight swing through the city. This compared to the black stuff arriving in a meteorite, and Spidey suddenly awakening with a black suit. And not so true to the comic, (correct me if I’m wrong) Gwen Stacy is supposed to be long dead, let alone actually be a love interest of Eddie Brock a.k.a. Venom. Anyway, if you’re the pure-bred who studies the Spider-man comic literature, Venom shouldn’t be dead but in jail so that we could probably get Carnage, and subsequently Spider-man and Venom teaming up against Carnage. But anyway, there’s a lot of sub-plots and alternate stories and if I may call them, side-shows. It’s complicated. Some characters get cloned, revived and even evolved and upgraded. Personally I wold love to see Spider-man, Venom and Carnage on screen together fighting it out.

Anyway, some things noticed in the movie which may be welcome or disappointing:
Kirsten Dunst (Mary Jane Watson) seemed a lot skinnier, which isn’t really as nice. I think she filled out her dress better in Spider-man 1.
Less of James Jonah Jameson, I liked that character’s comic effect in the movie.
Venom apparently vaporized, Eddie Brock included, which may mean no Carnage.
Harry apparently dead as well, which basically basically ends the intriguing family saga on screen. Unless of course some surrogation process pops out another Osborn (which somehow happens in the comics by the way).

But for a good time, don’t ponder too much about the comic plots and the movie’s. Just go watch the movie and if you can, catch it in Digital 4K.

ROCKY BALBOA

I was fortunate enough to obtain a pair of preview tickets to ROCKY BALBOA. So the obvious partner was the girlfriend.

Overall, it is a simple, entertaining movie that follows the tradition of the previous Rocky movies, the underdog’s success story against all odds.

Some parts I didn’t like:
Insufficient details on Rocky’s opponent. I was not able to get the feel that he was a formidable opponent, other than the fact that he was younger and faster.
Training scenes didn’t convince me that Rocky was prepared for the fight.

Some parts I liked:
Rocky reminiscing the old times with his late wife. (bittersweet)
The life lesson Rocky shared with his son.
The fight scene because I could feel Rocky’s fighting spirit.

My verdict: I recommend this movie for anyone who needs some motivation. I think it can do a good job to spur you on.

Movie Review: Mission Impossible III

GO WATCH IT because
Keri Russell from Felicity playing with guns,
Tom Cruise running through the streets of China spouting Mandarin, going “rang kai! rang kai!”
and Maggie Q in that red dress. (wolf whistle) :)…
are worth the price of the movie ticket.