Bullets 'n' Babes

It's not nerve grating, but I still didn't think the role fit him that well. I thought he was fine in Mismatched Couple as that was mostly a comedy, but his few attempts at levity in Tiger Cage 2 was really bad. Overall, I don't think comedy is his forté.

Wing Chun is just too busy with no real storytelling going on. Just a thinly plotted generic genre flick at best.

luckystars wrote:Wing Chun is just too busy with no real storytelling going on. Just a thinly plotted generic genre flick at best.

Yes, but a fun thinly plotted generic genre flick.

Masterofoneinchpunch wrote:

luckystars wrote:Wing Chun is just too busy with no real storytelling going on. Just a thinly plotted generic genre flick at best.

Yes, but a fun thinly plotted generic genre flick.

Yeah I enjoyed it no doubt. Wouldn't rush to rematch.

Yojimbo (1961-Japan) **½
Not bad Samurai saga with a cool Toshiro Mifune dominating the proceedings.
A tighter pace and more dynamic action would've helped me enjoy it more.
Fans of 'classic' JP cinema will not need to be convinced.

Markgway wrote:Yojimbo (1961-Japan) **½
Not bad Samurai saga with a cool Toshiro Mifune dominating the proceedings.
A tighter pace and more dynamic action would've helped me enjoy it more.
Fans of 'classic' JP cinema will not need to be convinced.

Hopefully you'll get a chance to see Hideo Gosha's samurai films some day, specially Three Outlaw Samurai (1964) (The Magnificent Trio is a glorified remake of it) and Goyokin (1969). Hitokiri (1969) is even better, but very dark.

His two Samurai Wolf films are great too - very spaghetti western esque. If Akira Kurosawa was borrowing from John Ford, and Sergio Leone was borrowing from Kurosawa, then in those two films Gosha was no doubt borrowing from Leone.

Goyokin was originally supposed to star Toshiro Mifune, but the word is he backed up because of the gruelling conditions the film was shot in...

Unbeatable (2013)

Here's a movie that I would say truly cements Dante Lam as one of the leading Hong Kong filmmakers at the moment and that will push his filming skills further if he's given the right material and the ideas to succeed again. What he has done here was creating a story that is put together and emphasized in a way he's never done before and thereby outdoing his previous works, including his break-out movie The Beast Stalker.

One might be more interested in the MMA aspect surrounding the movie. But if anything, it's the story and character chemistries between the main characters that make this movie very successful. From Nick Cheung's interaction with rookie Eddie Peng, and trainer/best friend Philip Keung to traumatized mother Mei Ting and her kid girl Crystal Lee. Then you also have a subplot involving Eddie Peng and his father Jack Kao, as well as the mother jeopardizing herself to get institutionalized and separated from her only kid she has left due to her depression to boost the emotional aspect of the character development and it works. This is Nick Cheung's show though. The guy has come a long way and has recently proven to be a fine leading man in his own right and keeps going forward and getting better at his game. The character development between him and the mother/kid was the strongest part of the dramatic side of the movie. I'd go my way and say that without this, the movie would've been another sports movie with conventional everything that has become the norm nowadays. Also kudos to Mei Ting and especially child actress Crystal Lee for conveying their acting performances so exceptionally well.

Action-wise, I liked what they did with the MMA although it wasn't overwhelming nor something new as far as MMA onscreen goes. Lots of techniques, details, logic etc that indicates that Lam has done his research on the sport. On the other hand, I think there were some moments of flashy movements that made me think "shouldn't there be little flash and more authenticity as far as MMA goes?". Plus the camerawork and editing - while being creative and fresh at times - was also a bit bugging as you can't really see or imagine what's going on due to odd angles and alignment of each shots. It's not surprising though, given the fact that the action was staged by Ling Chi-Wah, who regularly works as an action choreographer in Yuen Woo Ping's stunt team. Nevertheless, they deliver in the action department featuring entertaining training sequences and fight scenes. Andy On's moments were the highlight to me, and I can see why they keep hiring him for upcoming action movies. The downside to On's role is that his character shows up toward the second half as the random champion of Macau. This to me didn't serve much to the story and makes his character the weakest out of all other ones.

Verdict: Everyone who likes good touchy stories/character mash-ups with entertaining action sprinkled in between should definitely see this. I'd say it's up there with Drug War as one of the best Hong Kong movies made in 2013. Highly recommended!

Rating: 9/10

Bite Me if You Love Me (Japan, 2011) [DVD] – 2.5/5
A decently fresh bit of direct-to-video romance/gore from splatter director and convicted molester Naoyuki Tomomatsu. The gory love story follows a cute high school girl obsessed with zombie movies. She decides to make a zombie boyfriend by killing her classmate and bringing him back to life. Romance takes off well, until she meets the handsome, axe wielding Jason Yamada. Tomomatsu’s film is bit too clever on its own right, and features a horrible soundtrack, but it has a fun concept, hot sex scenes, and old school gore effects. Fan service for lovestruck film geeks if there ever was.

Zomvideo (Japan, 2011) [DVD] – 1/5
A prime example of disgusting post modernism that plagues modern genre cinema. A group of survivors find educational “how to survive a zombie apocalypse” videos and begin their fight against the living dead. The film borrows almost everything from other movies, including Braindead, Helldriver, Love Exposure, and Videodrome, but gives them a self ironic and pseudo-intellectual spin because zombie movies are “such stupid garbage”. The film’s only merit is skilful and surprisingly gruesome handmade gore, courtesy of Yoshihiro Nishimura’s special effects workshop.

Rape Hunter: Target Woman (Japan, 1980) [DVD] – 1/5
Nikkatsu’s former action specialist Yukihiro Sawada was one of the studio’s most interesting talents in the early/mid 70’s. Unfortunately by the end of the decade he had drifted to standard pink films and routine Yusaku Matsuda actioners. This one’s got both in it. The urban night views and the assault rifle featured in the poster, on the othe hand, are nowhere to be found in the film. It’s a tiresome crime-pink hybrid with a couple of violent moments, feeling very much like a low budget Toei Central film of the early 80's merged with Nikkatsu pink. There's very little of that style and energy that director Sawada was known for half a decade before.

The Shape of Night (Japan, 1964) [35mm] – 4/5
Noboru Nakamura’s realistic prostitution drama was one of the major re-discoveries of 2013. With its realism and strikingly stylish cinematography it echoes both Shohei Imamura and Seijun Suzuki, whose Gate of Flesh premiered earlier the same year. Nakamura refrains from Suzuki’s heavy-handed dosing of sex and violence, but the film is no less gripping. Leading actress Miyuki Kuwano is excellent as a sweet young girl falling in love with a yakuza, resulting in her slow downfall to a miserable street hooker.

HungFist wrote:If Akira Kurosawa was borrowing from John Ford, and Sergio Leone was borrowing from Kurosawa, then in those two films Gosha was no doubt borrowing from Leone.

Leone was borrowing from Ford even more than Kurosawa though! It's crazy to think how the spaghetti westerns took off so big in Japan essentially because of "plagiarism" (I guess you could call it that given Leone didn't initially acknowledge the influence of Yojimbo)and hence Toho getting the distribution rights to Fistful of Dollars on the cheap because of their lawsuit, so you then have all these great chanbara films being produced that were clearly influenced in turn by the likes of Leone, Corbucci, Sollima, etc. The Zatoichi series in particular would have been very different if it wasn't for these influences.

Don't forget that the first Zatoichi came out in 1962 and A Fistful of Dollars did not come into Japan until the end of 1965. The spaghetti westerns influenced the later Zatoichi's but not the earlier ones.

Ford influenced quite a many directors. I had a thread on a different site where I showed a very similiar scene between's Ford's The Lost Patrol and The Seven Samurai.

I will eventually write a longish review of Yojimbo. It is one of my favorite films.

Yeah I'm very familiar with the Zatoichi/Paella film series MOP, you've got to trust us BnB old guard to know what we're talking about!

Sanjuro (1962-Japan) ***
I enjoyed this sequel more than Yojimbo.

Game of Death (1978): 2/5

A messy film beset by problems - laughable cut out doubles notwithstanding. The acting is often ropey, there can be leaps in logic and the 'funeral' scene is tasteless. The film set shooting is in poor taste too, and kind of prophetic.To be fair I guess the filmmakers didnt have much footage to work with, so they made a kind of international espionage film with 'Bruce' in the middle.

Still, the locker room fight is great and so are the final 20 minutes.
I liked the end credits and sad title song which leave a bittersweet feeling behind.

The Monkey King (2014)

First things first, I'm not familiar with the JOURNEY TO THE WEST novel nor am a fan of the screen adaptations. So whether the movie is faithful to the novel or not I can't comment on unfortunately. But as a standalone movie, THE MONKEY KING is very entertaining. Adapting novels and what not onscreen is something I no longer take for granted because the whole point from filmmakers' views is that you loosely create a base around the original material and then intentionally mixing in your own ideas and thoughts to put together something different. This is what I got from watching the movie as well; being a loose adaptation that is not intended to be matched to its' original source material step-by-step. I think when filmmakers made this movie, they already knew to aim the movie for a specific audience: families. Imagine a sci-fi movie with all kinds of talking animals (including bears, turtles, giant killer fish, proboscis monkeys etc) and creatures all in G-rating vibe and aiding CGI in the mix, and you'll get my point. While I'm not usually fond of family-oriented versions of movies of opposite nature, I was honestly appreciating what I saw all the way through.

Now, people have not only criticized the unfaithfulness of the overall content but also pointed out how bad the filmmakers used CGI for characters and background. Sure, it may pale in comparison to Hollywood productions. But all in all it's actually pretty good for Hong Kong standards, especially when there's cheap CGI-filled Hong Kong movies existing like THE STORM RIDERS and THE LEGEND OF ZU. Something I also found remarkable was how well the Hollywood team did a great job mashing up the CGI with the actors' in motion, which I can't say about many 3D Hong Kong/Chinese movies made today. However, I still think CGI is one area China/Hong Kong can greatly improve on considering how much finance they have to invest on. I would love to see how they change this in the future, and how this can make them compete with Hollywood as a whole.

The cast includes many Hong Kong as well as Mainland talents. Despite this, the movie centers mainly around Sun Wukong (played by Donnie Yen) as well as Jade Warlord (Chow Yun-Fat), Bull Demon King (Aaron Kwok), Puti (Hai Yitian), and Erlangshen (Peter Ho). Chow Yun-Fat carries his version of Jade Warlord with calm coolness and channels charisma by not even seemingly trying (not a bad thing I'd say). Likewise for Aaron Kwok, who plays his role with great menace and to great effect and leaving out everything that he used to be synonymous with in the past. If anything though, this is Donnie Yen's show as it's his interpretation of Sun Wukong that simply makes the whole movie. Donnie throws in all kinds of expressions and emotions that will have you marveled at his dedication and efforts in breathing new life to the classic Sun Wukong character, something apparently very demanding and tough for him. I now regard this movie as one of his best achievements in terms of acting. I'm also aware that comparisons have been made between Donnie and previous actors portraying Sun Wukong after its' initial release. Again, this is something I can't comment on because I have only seen Stephen Chow and Jet Li's take on Sun Wukong. But I will say this: If most people highly praise Donnie's acting performance then it must mean something significant. Regardless, this shows that Donnie has now become part in the big league of great Hong Kong acting leads and continues to improve greatly.

What about the action scenes? Since this is a Donnie Yen vehicle, people surely expect great action scenes from him as well. Knowing Donnie's choreography style and his strive to put new and different stuff in each of his movies, I think this is once again a successful attempt for him; this time he mixes up an unusual empty-handed fighting (or should I say unconventional monkey kung fu) style, traditional staff techniques with 3D technology and wirework. While I really enjoy all the action scenes (ranging from one-on-one duels and magical gimmick duels to large-scale war battles), I don't think this will sit well with those that hate CGI/wirework only wanting the authentic/real physical aspect of action choreography. This is a fantasy movie after all so these fictional elements are required anyway.

Verdict: Some things (like most reviews have pointed out) needed alot of work because they were unpolished and amateurish. But overall, I'm very impressed with how the movie was put together and wouldn't mind seeing Donnie Yen return as Sun Wukong for the sequel (begins production this fall).

Rating: 8/10

I read your review earlier and was not sure how to reply since I had not seen the film (and often I will not read a review of a film I have not seen.) I am going to see the film and I like Donnie Yen. Your review pushes me even more towards watching it. I did not want to get into that worst actor thread (though Godfrey's choice was hilarious) because I find good things in actors like Michael Wong in Beast Cops (though I did think of him when the thread was created.) Weird, I never thought of Yen as a bad actor, well I still do not.

That's good to hear. Just try to forget all the negativity the movie's been getting though (I'm sure that won't be a problem for you).

I always knew Donnie had acting potentials ever since he started working with Tsui Hark. It was a shame he wasn't able to succeed early in his career though due to the decline of martial arts action movies in Hong Kong during the mid 1990s which to me prevented him from extending his partnership with Hark and working with other experienced directors at the time. Nevertheless, I'm glad he eventually found big success and international recognition with his post-2004 movies.

Beat TG wrote:That's good to hear. Just try to forget all the negativity the movie's been getting though (I'm sure that won't be a problem for you).
...

I'm usually good at this though occasionally overexpectations or a plethora of bad reviews sometimes taints things. I like to go in with a clean slate, heck I like to avoid trailers whenever possible. I hate hyperbole and that drives me one way or another sometimes. I'm trying to read nothing else on The Monkey King .

Donnie Yen is one of the few non-Jet Li, Jackie Chan HK actors that some offline friends actually know. Of course it helped that I have lent Flash Point, SPL (aka Kill Zone), Iron Monkey and others. Spreading the word of course.

Now back onto the review: a point I have written about many times (at various sites) is the fact that a movie does not have to be completely beholden to its original material (I have not read the Journey to the West). I would like it to be "faithful" to the source material, but defining that is hard enough. Movies are just a different medium (though sometimes books like some of Michael Crichton's read like a movie). Back to your point, I want to see if it stands on its own (in a way easier to do if you have not read the source material because it literally has to stand on its own with no previous knowledge of the source -- for an opposite example I think David Lynch's Dune is easier to understand if you have read the book hence it doesn't stand as well on its own.)

That's understandable. As for me, if a film-maker wants to alter original material for an screen adaptation I'll just to keep that in mind and try to appreciate it for what it is, regardless if it's going to be good or bad to me.

Firestorm (2013)

This was highly entertaining and well-made. Not great but very good. Like watching M. Mann's Heat and J. To's Breaking News get thrown in the mix. I liked the chemistry between Andy Lau and Gordon Lam as well as the screen presence of both Hu Jun and Philip Keung. I would say they all carried the whole movie together from an emotional standpoint. The first two acts maintained its' great intensity with both character development as well as confrontations and attempted arrests/escapes, but then took a nosedive and lost a bit of steam in the last act. The climax was terribly culminated, like they wanted to resolute in a way the average viewer wouldn't expect, after so much death and destruction done by the criminals. The idea would've been good if it wasn't so contrived and melodramatic.

The action was fire (staged by Chin Kar-Lok) though. Apart from J. To, I think few in HK have been able to do gunfights so exceptionally well in the last 10 years. It's well spread out starting good and ending great. My only gripe is the CGI used for explosions, smoke/dust, and overall objects being destroyed. We see too much of that in HK/China movies these days and it takes away the quality quite a bit. Even live muzzle flashes and bullets are replaced. But to their credit, they actually made it cool with all those bullets passing by "visibly" while the cops and criminals shoot at each other on the streets. Nice touch.

Overall, this movie shows that Hong Kong can still make good action movies although I wouldn't label it being a true classic in the genre. I would've liked less CGI and more live destructions and explosions during the action scenes but given the current economical situation as well as precautions these days, I can see why film-makers opt with CGI instead. But nevertheless, this will be a treat for those longing to see good HK action crimers.

Rating: 7.3/10

7.3 - that's very specific.

I'm a specific person

I give your last post 8.65937 out of 10.

Game of Death 2 (aka Tower of Death): 4/5

Cheesy in places (it's fun spotting the cut and pasted footage) but a lot more fun than Game of Death 1, with some great fights

[quote][/quote]Cheesy in places (it's fun spotting the cut and pasted footage)/quote] its not fun. its so obvious its untrue.love the movie though

Shojo wa isekai de tatakatta (Japan, 2014) [Yubari Fanta] – 1.5/5
Shusuke Kaneko’s idol action film is technically well made – yet nearly everything is wrong about it. The sci-fi story is set in an alternative reality where four girls fight evil villains entering the world through mysterious portals. The film tries to be both an idol flick and a martial arts movie, but fails in both. Action choreography is nonsensical posing for the most part, and the idol stuff never catches fire. Casting is problematic, too: Rina Takeda is the only capable fighter, ex-ABK Kayano is the only trained idol, and the other two girls manage neither task very well. The storyline is (unamusing) nonsense as well. A couple of catchy action moments with Takeda, and hilarious political satire throughout the film are the only positives.

Gun Woman (Japan, 2014) [Yubari Fanta] – 4/5
Samurai Avenger director Kurando Mitsutake returns with a far, far superior b-action gem. Gone are the constant flashbacks and movie homage that sank his previous effort. The ultra violent thriller is roughly modelled after kung fu films, with a street hooker (Asami) going through a hellish physical and mental training for a one time suicide mission. Her target is a Japanese gangster with a taste for necrophilia. Though shot on very modest budget and not looking all that hot, the film features stylish camerawork, excellent soundtrack, career best performance by Asami (who doesn’t speak a single word) and hard boiled action sequences, some of them featuring full nude Asami.