The Wedding Diary | 结婚那件事 [ Movie Review ] ★★★

The Pitch


This year, there's three Asian movies that is out to cash in on celebrate the Valentine Day season. From Hong Kong - China, there's Romancing in Thin Air. From Taiwan - China, there's Love. Last but not least, from Singapore Malaysia, there's The Wedding Diary. 

The Wedding Diary is a comedy about the difficulties in preparing and executing the most important day in a couple's life. It features artists across the straits such as Ah Niu 阿牛 (Anniu), Elanne Kwong 江若琳, Kara Hui 惠英红, Zhu Houren 朱厚任, Marcus Chin 陈建彬, Chris Tong童冰玉 , Shaun Chen 陈泓宇 and Maggie Theng 邓妙华.


Ah Niu's recent debut as a director and leading actor for  Ice Kacang Puppy Love was pretty impressive. The Wedding Diary marks the second time for Ah Niu in the leading role. Not bad for a guy who don't really fit the usual handsome suave stereotype for a male lead in a movie. It would be interesting to see how he fares in this movie.

This review is made possible with special thanks to Clover Films.

Quick | 퀵 [ Movie Review ] ★★★1/2

The Pitch

Quick 퀵 caught my attention with it's box office performance in Korea. It didn't managed to top the box office during it's run in Korea cinemas. Each week, it was outflanked by other Korean movies like The Front Line and Sector 7. But at the year end tally of total admissions, Quick was ahead of The Front Line and Sector 7. That piped my curiosity. What the draw of this movie which look strikingly like Keanu Reeves' Speed?

The Plot

Legendary biker Han (Lee Min-Ki) used to roam the streets recklessly with their motorcycles. Now he works as a courier boy who delivers his customer's goods in record breaking time.

His past caught up with him when his colleague dispatch him to send Ah-Rom (Kang Hye-Won) a member of a successful pop idol group to a concert. It turned out that Ah-Rom used to be his girlfriend and he broke her heart by cheating on her. Just as Han was about to proceed with the delivery, a mysterious caller warns him that Ah-Rom is wearing a helmet with explosive. If Han doesn't makes the deliveries within the time limited that the mysterious caller set, the helmet will explode. If they try to remove the helmet or are separated more than 10 meters, the helmet will explode.

The deliveries that they have to make are obviously explosive in nature. Not only that, they have to deal with Ah-Rom insistence on making a detour for her pop idol group's performance, the persistent hounding by Ah-Rom admirer cum Han's ex arch rival cum traffic police officer Kim Myung-Sik (Kim In-Kwon) and a conspiracy theory involving Japanese Yakuza. The chain of events and characters provide the set up for a series of unexpected fun and thrills.

The Perspective - Quick Movie Review

Quick 퀵 - think of it as "Speed" infuse with nonsensical humor and what a ride it was. In fact, there's even a climatic ending on board on a speeding train that stood out as a form of "homage" to "Speed". It might not have been equally thrilling but Quick stood out on with it's side bursting gags that kept me laughing as the explosive thriller unfolds.

The Viral Factor | 逆戰 [ Movie Review ] ★★★1/2

The Plot

A failed mission to protect a scientist who has stolen a copy of the smallpox virus left Jon Man (Jay Chou) severely injured and the scientist kidnapped by his traitorous colleague Sean (Andy On). The bullet is lodged in Jon's brain will paralyses him within two week and he decides to spend his final days with his mother (Elaine Jin).

What he didn't expect was that his mother revealed to him that he has a long lost brother Man Yang (Nicolas Tse) whom she left behind with his gambling addict dad Man Tin (Liu Kai Chi). To fulfill his mother last wishes, Jon decides to track Man Yang down in Malaysia.

En route to Kuala Lumpur (Capital of Malaysia), Jon befriends medical specialist Rachel (Lin Peng) and came across criminal organization attempting to kidnap her. During the process to foil this kidnap attempt, he discovers that Man Yang is a wanted felon working as a mercenary for Sean, who needs the help of a medical specialist to mutate the small pox virus and holds the world ransom.

After Man Yang failed to kidnap Rachel but escaped with the virus, the criminal organization attempts to control him by kidnapping his daughter. The righteous Jon has to decide whether to stop Man Yang from breaking more laws or assist his wayward brother in rescuing his niece and stopping Sean's diabolical plans?

Turning Point 2 Laughing Gor Returns | Laughing Gor之潛罪犯 [ Movie Review ] ★★★

Laughing Gor is quite a "cultural" phenomenon in the Hong Kong entertainment scene. This undercover cop character was a supporting role in a Hong Kong TVB television police drama E.U (Emergency Unit - which was already a third installment to The Academy series). While undercover cops characters and angle had been done numerous times in Hong Kong films and tv series, Laughing Gor managed to gain so much popularity until the character / actor got a movie and drama series spin off.

First was the movie Turning Point that was supposedly meant to chronicle the Laughing Gor's times before the events in E.U. However it wasn't a faithful prequel as there are a few events that contradict with what happened in the television series.

TVB "corrected" those problems by making another spin off television series called Lives of Omission. This new television series became a replacement series that correct the contradiction between E.U and Turning Point. After Lives of Omission, it seems that Laughing Gor is still pretty much sought after and that why there's Turning Point 2 Laughing Gor Returns ( Laughing Gor之潛罪犯 ), a movie that directly ties in with events that occurred in Lives of Omission.

Turning Point 2 starts off with Laughing Gor (Michael Tse) being sentenced to life imprisonment for killing So (Bosco Wong). But for Hong Kong's most beloved undercover cop, it's never that simple. It turned out that Laughing Gor is in a new mission to gather more information on Tai Chit (Chapman To) a former Narcotics Bureau Station Sergeant who admitted to corruption but refused to reveal the identity of his accomplice.

Soon afterwards, a trained psychologist Professor Fok (Francis Ng) is imprisoned for drug dealings. The mysterious Professor is not a simple man. As soon as his jail term starts, he demonstrated his ability in analyzing people and manipulating people's mind. Laughing Gor soon realized that the Professor is interested in Tai Chit too. To add on to his dubious character, Laughing Gor also noticed that So's wife, Paris (Kate Tse) has been visiting Professor Fok and they are in a strange loving relationship.

What is Tai Chit withholding? Who is this mysterious Professor Fok and what is he up to? Why is Paris hooking up with the Professor when she should still be in the mourning for her dead husband. It all adds up to a big confrontation with the new head of police, the drug lord of the golden triangle and a diabolical plan to change the system.

There are a couple of things that I noticed about Turning Point 2 Laughing Gor Returns. The first and foremost would be that this movie relies heavily on the events in Lives of Omission and how it affected characters like So and Paris. Even though there's flashbacks to the last few episodes of Lives of Omission, it can get rather disconnecting. If it's impossible to access the television series, at least try to read up with Wiki page on it.
 
The second thing would be that Turning Point 2 played out like the third installment of Infernal Affairs. In order to move on, it adds new characters in by writing new background stories that wasn't established in The Omission of Life. In a way, it's a major retcon to what's been established, particularly to Laughing Gor killing So at the end of Lives of Omission. Some might like it and some might not. Personally, I thought it was a rather intriguing retcon and it kept me entertained throughout the show.

It's also quite strange that Michael Tse's screen time as Laughing Gor has been dramatically reduced for a lead role. It's filled with unnecessary characters like Carmen (Janice Man), Laughing Gor's handler and comedic performance of MC Jin as Officer Yeung that did very little for the story or Laughing Gor's story. It doesn't help when Michael Tse's co stars, Francis Ng, Chapman To and Kara Hui are stealing the show from the lead. It's like what Anthony Wong, Eric Tsang and Francis Ng (again) did in the first Turning Point movie, out shinning Michael Tse's performance.

In summary, I am still waiting for Michael Tse to impress me with his Laughing Gor character. I am still not getting the hype and popularity of this undercover cop. But that not to say that Turning Point 2 Laughing Gor Returns isn't without it's entertainment value. The retcon was fun to watch and the supporting cast of Francis Ng, Chapman To and Kara Hui are ever reliable in their respecting roles. Turning Point 2 comes recommended and probably highly recommended if you are a fan of Lives of Omission.


Rating: ***

The Tree of Life [ Movie Review ] ★★★

Some said that director Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life is a multilayered film that requires repeated viewings. Others called it a snooze fest or the worst movie ever. There are cinemas in USA that put up signs that warned the moviegoers about the enigmatic and non-linear narrative of this movie and offering refunds for those who walk out of the show.

Even Sean Penn was quoted in a French publication that "A clearer and more conventional narrative would have helped the film without, in my opinion, lessening its beauty and its impact. Frankly, I'm still trying to figure out what I'm doing there and what I was supposed to add in that context!"

It makes you wonder how is it going to be a thought provoking film experience.

After experiencing Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line many years ago, I knew that there were going to be plenty of philosophy musing and questioning, abstract moments for the viewers to fill in the blank or link for themselves. It's pretty much the same for The Tree of Life.

There's hardly a conventional structure to tell the story of a Midwestern family dealing with the lost of a son. It started with Mrs and Mr O'Brien (Jessica Chastain and Brad Pitt) receiving the news of their son death. It jumped to the modern day when their other son Jack O'Brien (Sean Penn) is a successful architect who was still affected by the death of his brother. The Tree of Life then depicts the formation of the universe with a prayer to God to ease the pain and briefly covers the evolution of life on planet Earth. After which, the bulk of the movie revolves around the O'Brien's household in the fifties, covering various aspects of the kids' growing up phrase and the relationship between the parents and the kids. Ending with an unexplained surreal reunion of the O'Brien family at a beach.

Personally, I felt that The Tree of Life is a movie that requires the right type of mood to watch. An unhurried contemplating patient mood to soak in all that's being shown. There are great visual and soundtracks that momentary helped ease the frustration with the difficulties in comprehending the significance of various events that's going on in this movie. But I got to agree with Sean Penn on how The Tree of Life could have been better. There's a degree of hollowness in the emotions that depicted in this movie. The philosophic contemplation had very little bearing when it's hard to be emotionally invested on the characters or their situation.

I don't think I had truly understood this movie in one setting. But I think it's ok. There enough goodness in The Tree of Life that make me want to revisit it in the future and perhaps the second viewing might give more insight to this multilayered movie. 

In closing, The Tree of Life is not for the usual movie goers. Personally, going for a Terrence Malick movie felt like an uphill task. There's always so much richness in the sight and sound found in his movie and it's a treat to be immerse in them. But then again, it's like going for philosophy marathon lessons that one can never be too sure if they got the stamina to last through out. I would recommend this movie but you have been warned.

Finding Mr. Destiny | 김종욱 찾기 [ Movie Review ] ★★★

The Pitch

Fans of Korean popular TV drama "Coffee Prince" will be anticipating this movie as this will be Gong Yoo's first movie after his two years military service. Fans of Woochi and I'm a Cyborg, but that's OK would probably want to catch this movie for actress Im Soo-Jung's involvement.

The Plot

Despite coming to the end of marriageable age, musical stage manager Seo Ji-Woo (Im Soo-Jung) just turned down a wedding proposal from a pilot. It was because she couldn't forget her first love Kim Jong-Ok. They met during a trip to India ten years ago and lost contact with each other during their respective flight back to Korea. 

Meanwhile, Han Gi-Joon (Gong Yoo) just got fired from his job as a travel agent. He decided to bunk in with his brother in law workplace and start a new business venture in assisting people in finding their first love.

Seo Ji-Woo's dad became worried as his daughter ain't getting any younger. He came across Han Gi-Joon's business flyer and forced Seo Ji-Woo to hire Gi-Joon's service so that she could get over her first love. After some initial unwillingness on Ji-Woo's part, Gi-Joon managed to convince her to travel all over Korea to find Kim Jong-Ok. It's not an easy teamwork as both of them couldn't stand each other quirks.

But like all typical romance movies, the unlikely couple will find something special in each other during the journey. The real question is, what would happened at the end of the search for Kim Jong-Ok? Will there be a happy ending for our protagonists? or someone gotto let go of the new blossoming romance?

The Perspective

Initially Finding Mr. Destiny was all over the place. Switching over from India to Korea and back, intersecting with the introduction of Han Gi-Joon and Seo Ji-Woo, it became a little difficult to follow, specially for one who are not familiar with Korean stars like Im Soo-Jung and Gong Yoo. It was patchy and disorienting for a while before one could settle down the various character's motivation and hurdles that they need to get through.

The movie also had an excessive amount of supporting characters and subplots that did very little to enrich the budding romance between the unlikely couple. Parts like the older performer with diva problem and a pop star who is constantly late. There's even a musical performance to showcase Im Soo-Jung's talent which felt like an extra padding to the movie. I am aware that this movie is based on a successful musical in Korea but it just felt out of place here.

Otherwise, there are some nice comedic touches in Finding Mr. Destiny and overall entertaining. The chemistry between Im Soo-Jung and Gong Yoo was adequate to sell their blossoming romance to the audience. It could have gone through better structuring and trimming of those unnecessary characters and subplots. I got a feeling that the target audience here would be the Fans of Korean romance drama and judging from the crowd reaction, I got a feeling that Finding Mr. Destiny had achieve their objective.
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127 Hours [ Movie Review ] *** 1/2

After winning big with Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours seemed to be the perfect film project for Danny Boyle to direct. Drastically different from his previous movies, this might just be a good challenge for his film making career. Director Danny Boyle not only rises to meet the challenge and it exemplify his talent in making films that are entaining and absorbing, even if the protagonist  is stuck in one place for the bulk of the movie.

127 Hours is based on Aron Ralston (James Franco)'s ordeal of getting his arm stuck with a boulder in an isolated canyon with not a single soul anywhere near him. His water supply was running out and there's no way of lifting the boulder. It's either he resign to his fate or do something so drastic that most people won't have the stomach for. Folks who are aware of this true life story would probably know how this movie would end. But the only way to have a better understanding of what Aron Ralston went through in that 127 hours, would be to watch this movie.

It started with a montage of Aron Ralston packing for a weekend trip and unknowingly left out some crucial items that foreboded the events to come. He gave his mom's call a miss and left on his trip. While trekking, he met up with two female trekkers and brought them to visit the big drop in one of the canyon. After which, he left them and went on his way.

Photo by Chuck Zlotnick

Things were fine and he was skillfully navigating through the canyon terrain when the "unexpected" happened. A supposedly unmovable boulder that he was holding on gave way and both of them fell into the depth of the canyon. He soon discovered that his right arm is stuck between the boulder and the canyon wall. There's no way to pull his arm out of the boulder and it would take more than one man to lift this boulder. There's no one around and he told nobody of his plan for the weekend.

The movie then went on to showcase the choices that Aron Ralston made to free himself from the predicament with the equipments he got with him. It covered how he exhausted the various options of dislodging his arm from the boulder. It also showed what he went through to survive when he was running out of water.

In order to make this movie more than just the survival manual of Aron Ralston, it examined his mental state at that time. He started to rethink about his life and how he treated his love ones in the past. Under the state of dehydration, he started to have hallucination and premonition.  In short, it's a thought provoking 94mins of his 127 hours ordeal.

Photo by Chuck Zlotnick

James Franco gave one Oscar worthy performance in this largely solitary act.  From the over confident laid back mountain climber to a helpless being who is coming to terms with the bad choices that he had made, James Franco performance made it reverting to watch. Especially the scene where his Aron Ralston started acting out as a TV host interviewing himself. The humour and painful self realization all hinged on James Franco's performance and he pretty much made it an unforgettable performance.

But while 127 Hours is entertaining, there's something about the treatment of the movie that holding me back from truly embracing it. The fancy editing, split screens and flashback montage of his thoughts were a double edge sword for me. On one hand, it kept things all jazz up and breezy to follow, leaving not a single moment of boredom. On the other hand, it does not really fully submerge the viewer into the agony of Aron Ralston predicament. All the fancy fimmaking devices used in this movie became ironically a distraction. The triumphant of the mind over matter didn't felt that triumphant and even though it was an extraordinary experience, it felt like it was missing something. Nevertheless, 127 Hours is a fine piece of work and it's likely to get better upon repeated viewing (as most Danny Boyle movies are).

Beyond the Movie

Potential Spoiler (scroll over to read)

According to imdb, it took 13 men, a winch and a hydraulic jack to raise the boulder that trapped Aron Ralston high enough to retrieve the arm. According to Wiki, the amputated arm was cremated and Aron Ralston scattered the ashes at the accident scene as he felt that there's where they belong.

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127 Hours received 6 nomination for the upcoming Academy Award and they are

Best Picture, Best Actor (James Franco), Best Adapted Screenplay (Danny Boyle & Simon Beaufoy), Best Original Score (A.R.Rahman), Best Original Score ( A. R . Rahman, Dido & Rollo Armstrong for "If I  Rise") and Best Film Editing (Jon Harris)

Saw 3D [ Movie Review ] ***

In the 7th installment, there's basically two stories going on at the same time. The main story would be on Bobby Dagen, a man who claimed that he is a JigSaw game survivor and learned to embrace his life more after the traumatic experience. His book made him famous and he started reaching out to the other survivors. Obviously that didn't please Jigsaw and soon, Bobby Dagen found himself "back" in the games. This time, it's a series of games which he must accomplish to save his colleagues and his wife.

Meanwhile, Jill Tuck (Jigsaw's ex wife) is trying to escape from the latest Jigsaw killer. After the incident in the previous movie, she seeks help from the police and the Jigsaw is trying to find ways to kill her. The thing is that his identity had been revealed to the police and he could no longer use the perks of being a police detective to achieve his mission as Jigsaw.

The thing about this installment would be that it's a last ditch effort to regain the high turnover at the box office as the previous five movies did. To entice the audience, the filmmakers are throwing in the 3D gimmick and removing the 7th from the movie title, hopping that unsuspecting folks might just get the tickets without knowing that there's a long history.

Bad news for those unsuspecting folks cause the whole Jill Tuck's story arc is somewhat rooted in what went on during the first 6 movies subplots. To understand why the latest Jigsaw is so hellbent on killing Jill Tuck, you need to know what happened in the climatic finale of Saw 6. Then there's the return of Dr Gordon, a character from the 1st Saw movie that had not appeared since then.

Fans of this series might be disappointed too. The return of Dr Gordon felt like an awkward insertion to the storyline. Not much is done on the part that he play in this franchise except the possibilities of expanding this series further with the involvement of this character. If fans had embrace the previous retcon (Retoactive Continuity) as a mean to deepen the series mythos, the retcon of Dr Gordon just felt rather repetitive and tedious.

Similarly Bobby Dagen's journey felt like what happened with the main "victim" of Saw 6 and Saw 3. One solo guy going through a series of sadistic tests to save others who are trapped in deadly contraption. It's all been done before and in more interesting fashion.

If this is the final chapter to the Saw franchise, then the series had ended not with a bang but a whimper.  There are still some open threads ways that would allow another sequel to be made but it would take a movie with a calibre of the 6th movie to make the Saw franchise interesting again.

Ironically the director of Saw 3D is the same as Saw 6. It just make one wonder how did he did such a bland job out of it. Perhaps he is still unhappy about being pulled off from Paranormal Activities 2 to direct this movie. Or perhaps the 3D technology took time away from crafting a stronger story (refer to Saw 6). Or even perhaps the script was that weak that the director couldn't do much to savage it. There might be hope that a Saw VIII might give the Saw franchise a proper finale but given the poor box office collection, that unlikely to happen. It's just a pity that the series would end with such an average installment.

Was it worth the 3D price?

There's some gimmicky 3D tricks of having some body parts and blood flying towards the audience. It was more comical than gruesome. The depth of field is nothing worth mentioning and watching this movie without the 3D gimmick would have been better. In fact  Instead of making it 3D, more effort could have spent on making this one heck of a finale. Save that extra 3 bucks.

Go Find a Psychic! | 曲がれ！スプーン [ Movie Review ] *** 1/2

Go find a psychic is literally about a lady quest for a real psychic. Yone Sakurai (Masami Nagasawa)  happened to work in a television program about people with psychic ability and most of them turned out to be fake wannabes seeking their 15 minutes of fame. While her colleagues are probably just concerned about program ratings, she is one individual with a strong conviction on the mysterious and unexplained phenomena.  Her boss used her strong conviction and sent her on a trip all over Japan to find a real psychic (or phenomenon).

Meanwhile, in a cafe, a group of individual with different psychic abilities gathered for a small private party. Unlike the fake wannabes, this group of people with real special capabilities want nothing to do with the media, specially the psychic program show that Yone Sakurai works for. Their party was crashed by a wannabe and the enthusiastic group of special folks unwittingly revealed their power to the wannabe.

While the special psychics are trying hard to protect their secrets, Yone Sakurai entered the cafe to interview this wannabe. To escalate events, one of psychic with X Ray vision discovers that there's a poisonous spider (from the previous wannabe) in her name card holder. In order to save her, the psychics took turns with their special abilities to remove the name card holder from her pocket.

That the whole crux of this movie. Will they be able to help her without revealing their secrets?

On the whole, Go Find a Psychic! has a Japanese Christmas telemovie / television series feel to it. The camera work, the events, the actors's performance and even the gags weren't spectacularly cinematic. However it brought up a good point on what people will do if they have special powers. It was also rather amusing to see how these psychics draw the line on what they would use their power for and the limits of their power.

Moreover it also instill the belief of holding onto one's faith no matter how strange they might be. That and the Santa gag made this movie seemed just right for the Christmas season.

Confessions 告白 [ Movie Review ] ****

Every once in a while, a truly disturbing movie comes our way and stayed etched in the minds long after the end credits roll off. Similar to Battle Royale, Confessions used an extreme scenario to highlight and reflect certain issues in our society (or at least perhaps in the Japanese society). It's tense, dark and unflinching movie that grip hold of you tightly right from the start. It also used an innovative flashbacks method to tell the story.  Last but not least, the beautiful cinematography creates just the right type of moody setting and it was nothing less than a visual treat.

But the most satisfying bit about Confessions would be how it dealt with the effective ways of punishing someone who is truly apathetic to his wrongdoing and almost everything else in the world.

Confessions started with a middle school teacher Yoko Moriguchi (Takako Matsu) and her rowdy students. She informed them that her teaching life is coming to an end as her four year old daughter had died from a pool accident. After doing some investigation, she had discovered that her daughter was murdered by two of her students. Identifying them only as student A and student B, Moriguchi revealed that even after learning the shocking truth, she won't be going to the police as due to their age, student A and student B won't be prosecuted by the criminal law. Through the teacher's detailed recounting of what had transpired, the class managed to guess the identity of Student A and B. In a eerily calm and collected manner, she ended her class by informing the class that among the packs of milk that the class had just drank, she had tainted two of them with blood containing HIV.

Usually, such unexpected and surprising revelation would be reserved till the end of a vengeance movie and used as a climax twist or punch to the revenge tale. But in Confessions, this is just an intense wrap up for the introduction arc.

The class started to dish out their brand of punishment on Student A and B. While Student A managed to endure the nightmarish bullying, Student B went crazy and stayed away from school. On the surface, it seemed that the two kids had received their punishment for their atrocities but as the story slowly revealed more shocking truth behind the initial revelation. From the confessions of the class rep, student A and B, we discovered their thought process and the actual motivation behind the horrible murder. It's just bone chilling to learn what the kids truly felt about the whole incident and they are so wrapped up in their own selfish thinkings.

Besides the dynamic tension between the teacher and the students, the film also explored the issues between a child and their mother. On one hand, it cover how the lack of motherly love could fractured a child's growth and on the other hand, it also show how smothering one child could be equally damaging. It's on the extreme bits but somehow these scenarios are heart wrenching to watch.

Beyond the Movie

• Confessions 告白 is Japan's candidate for the upcoming Oscar Best Foreign Language Film.
• Was Top of Japan Box Office for 4 weeks in a row.
• Confessions 告白 made it through the 1st Oscar Best Foreign Language Film nomination round. ( as of 20th Jan 2011)
• Confessions 告白 is now officially out of the race for Oscar Best Foreign Language Film (as of 26th Jan 2011)

• Confessions 告白 won 4 awards at the 34th Japan Academy (as of 18th Feb 2011)
• Picture of the Year: Kokuhaku
• Director of the Year: Tetsuya Nakashima
• Screenplay of the Year: Tetsuya Nakashima
• Outstanding Achievement in Film Editing: Yoshiyuki Koike