X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2

Finally, I can check this off my list! Expecting the cinematic train wreck of the century based on how a lot of people had reacted to it, I was surprised to find a pretty decent X-Men outing, albeit a tad too vanilla. The story and script is a little weak, but not exactly the worst offender either. There are pretty decent performances here, especially from Sophie Turner who got to do quite a bit of dramatic flexing. The action was a bit messy at times, but it’s still exhilarating to see the X-Men synching their abilities when fighting enemies. And it’s a nice touch to show them as celebrated heroes for once as they have been discreetly and thanklessly vigilanting in past installments. That’s how I remembered them in the comics, so it’s nice to see that. I also felt that the handling of the Dark Phoenix story was way better than X-Men 3.

Shocker, I know, but I enjoyed it.

Review: Mortal Kombat (2021) ⭐️⭐️1/2

Take a franchise filled with grotesque characters, plan a couple of gory money shots, and tie them all together with some superfluous plot fillers - what do you get? It’s a horror flick that also happens to be a video game adaptation. I knew it when I saw James Wan credited as one of the producers. The good: the money shots delivered. Some of it were even pretty clever. As a Mortal Kombat fan, you will be satisfied by all the callbacks and all the blood and gore. Hiroyuki Sanada really added a lot of legitimacy to all the daftness that’s happening. Sub-Zero was easily the best villain, played menacingly by Joe Taslim of The Raid fame. Kung Lao was great! Lewis Tan isn’t bad as the eye candy lead. And there’s proper martial arts, yes! Not too bad and could have done with a little bit more, but at least some effort was put in. Also, that opening scene was so classily done that I was a bit shocked the production design and filmmaking quality started to dramatically nosedive from that point on, which brings me to... The bad: The set designs were really cheap-looking, like Sonya Blade’s crib that looked like they just randomly picked and shot the nearest junkyard they could find, and the more exotic locales like Raiden’s temple and the Outworlds felt like recycled Star Trek TV sets, and felt small and cheap. There are many TV shows nowadays that looked better than this. But what’s worse was how disjointed the movie felt. It’s as if there were 10 different directors shooting it. The filmmaking quality varies from segment to segment. The writing and the editing; not good. Bottom line: if you’re a fan, you will at least watch it. Non-fans should just treat it as a low-budget horror of the week, and you wouldn’t feel so disappointed. And if you’re wondering which is better to me - it’s those YouTube shorts that some guy did that had Katie Sackoff in it. They were far superior on every level except the money shots. RANDOM THOUGHTS: - When Liu Kang appeared, I was really holding out hope that it was Robin Shou. But dude’s turning 61 this year - SIXTY ONE! So it wasn’t him. Some other guy. - Tadanobu Asano was Raiden??? Yes, it’s Hogun of The Warriors Three himself! But jeezus, he wasn’t good here. He’s a good actor, but he looked uncomfortable doing this for some reason. - Chin Han, the guy who Batman grabs from Hong Kong in The Dark Knight, and also Togusa in the live action Ghost in the Shell, plays Shang Tsung. He’s also Singaporean like me. Sadly, he didn’t make me forget Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. Tagawa is better by far. - The Mortal Kombat theme wasn’t very well-used here. The 1995 film did it better and saved it for the best moments.

Review: Arrival

My most anticipated movie of 2016. It's a "pure" science fiction movie like 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Martian where the emphasis is more on the science than fiction. Just like how The Martian made botany cool, Arrival does the same for linguists. The fun thing about the movie is trying to figure out what the aliens want, and to do that you need to figure out how to communicate with them. This movie approaches that process with a high degree of realism, which I've always felt is a lot more interesting than trying to simplify it (e.g. make aliens speak in perfect English using magic tech) because you're afraid the general audiences will not understand or appreciate it. Of course, the movie is not just all about that. There is a mystery behind the aliens' intentions and a lesson to be learned. Overall, this is a thrilling and fascinating movie that makes you think more than the average crowd-pleasing sequels. Very well directed by Denis Villeneuve, who did Sicario previously, and will direct the sequel to Blade Runner next. Because of one minor gripe (see below, but with spoilers), this is a good but not great one for me.

SPOILER ALERT

My minor gripe is that its resolution plagiarized the same time paradox idea used in movies like The Terminator and even Interstellar. Different packaging (because of the linguistic angle), but same content nevertheless. People who hasn't seen many sci-fi movies, especially kids will have their minds blown by the ending, but for jaded connoisseurs this felt like an unnecessary retread that came too soon after Interstellar had done the same thing just three years ago.

Proof of Purchase

Review: Taken & Taken 2

I'm taken by Taken, and Taken 2 too. The first one plays on every father's paranoia about his daughter's safety in this dark and cruel world. Imagine having to reluctantly agree to your 16-year-old daughter's parentless trip to Paris, only to have her kidnapped by human traffickers immediately after landing. But what if you're an ex-CIA operative with "a very special set of skills"? What would you do? Use your spy connections and razor sharp instincts to find your daughter, and your combat experience to shoot and karate-chop the living crap out of everyone who's responsible, of course. It's every father's wish-fulfilment fantasy. It's also a thrill to watch an improbably efficient, resourceful and lethal ex-spy go to work.

Taken 2 actually spoils Taken 1 if you haven't seen the first, because the poster instantly tells you that the hero survived the first movie; either that or you thought the sequel was about his twin brother. Of course it isn't, but you have to wonder... what are they going to do with the sequel; kidnap his daughter again? So they go with this premise that I thought was pretty clever - remember those people he killed in Part 1? Apparently, human trafficking is a family biz, and their dads and brothers and sons are not too happy with their kin dying in the hands of some American fellow. I couldn't understand the heavy Albanian accent during the funeral scene, so I just imagined them saying "at last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi; at last we will have our revenge." It's our hero who gets taken this time, and his daughter does the rescuing. Great to see Liam Neeson rampaging against the backdrop of Istanbul.

Ludicrous but fun. Recommended.

Review: Resident Evil: Retribution (Part 5)

Despite what the critics say, I really enjoyed the Resident Evil movies. Silly, but still darn creative in finding ways to present zombies and to eliminate them (guns, missiles, sidekick to the head, psychokinetic powers, coins, etc.) But the fifth one, Resident Evil: Retribution, is probably the first one that I didn't enjoy. The creativity level dropped so drastically in Part 5 that they almost rehashed every highlight from the past four movies and use a holodeck-like facility as an excuse to bring them back to this movie. I can't tell you not to watch this one if you are dying to know what happens after Part Four, but be prepared for ANOTHER cliffhanger at the end of Retribution. We're all going to have to watch Part Six now. Thanks a lot. Surprised to see Li Bing Bing play a debuting major character from the video game. Expect one or two more surprises from it. Not enough to save the movie, though.

Review: Dredd

Dreading to see Dredd? Dread no further! Turns out to be one fun, violent sci-fi action pic that also manages to stay faithful to the original source material (the comic book). It's true; there are quite a few similarities between this and the most highly-lauded actioner of 2012, The Raid, but Dredd's world and its inhabitants are compelling, and the action is a little different from The Raid's martial-arts-heavy highlights. This is a reboot, not a sequel, so don't bother with the inferior Stallone version from 1995. Recommended!

Review: King Hu's Dragon Gate Inn / Come Drink With Me / A Touch of Zen

Chinese film director King Hu made three "wuxia" (or the adventures of Chinese swordsmen/martial artists) movies that became very influential in the making of future wuxia movies. They are "Come Drink With Me", "Dragon Gate Inn" and "A Touch of Zen".  I think Ang Lee said that his Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon took a lot of inspiration from King Hu's films. The famous bamboo swordfight obviously pays homage to the one in A Touch of Zen.

It was very difficult to find and pricey to buy King Hu's films despite their huge stature in Chinese cinema, so I have never been exposed to any of his works until now. Below are my thoughts about his revered masterpieces.

Dragon Gate Inn (1967)

Dragon Gate Inn is probably his most famous work with Chinese mass audiences, popular enough to inspire two remakes, the latest one released just last year, directed by Tsui Hark. It has a very classic tale of good guys and bad guys gathering in a remote location (the titular inn), biding their time and trying not to get killed while waiting for their "target" to appear. And when said target finally does, hell will break loose in its entirety in Dragon Gate Inn.

The movie may be one of the classics and pioneers, but far better wuxia films have already been made since. The storyline is a lot more simplistic than I expected. The characters are the usual wuxia archetypes: the heroic swordsman in white, the woman warrior disguised as a man, her hot tempered brother, the innkeeper with a past, the evil eunuch kungfu master and his ever loyal right hand man. These characters are never explored further than their basic functions in the plot. For example, it is taken as a given that they must risk lives and limbs to protect the family of a wrongfully accused man, even though they hardly knew the guy, because, you know, they're the good guys. You can find more characterisation in the "inferior" 1992 remake, which stars Maggie Cheung (Hero), Tony Leung Ka-Fai (Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame), Brigitte Lin (Swordsman II), Lawrence Ng (Sex and Zen), and Hung Yan-yan (Once Upon A Time in China III), with Donnie Yen (Ip Man) playing the evil eunuch. (Holy crap!)

The biggest surprise was to find wall-to-wall non-stop action in this oldie, especially in the last hour. I love that King Hu's swordsmen fighting style is more Japanese samurai than the dance-like kungfu we're more accustomed to. King Hu's style was refreshing and imaginative in Come Drink With Me, but here it feels a tad too hack-and-slash repetitive. All the best scenes in the movie happen inside the inn, with people sneaking around candlelit rooms, flinging daggers, hatching plans, and poisoning drinks.

Come Drink With Me (1966)

Personally, this is King Hu's best. The characters in this one are still pretty flat, except for one, the titular "drunken swordsman" (the literal translation of the Chinese title). Haunted, conflicted, cunning, wise, honourable, there's some meat on these bones. Cheng Pei Pei, who was in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon plays the pretend male swordsman, Golden Swallow, who is tasked to locate and rescue the kidnapped son of a government official. On the way, she bumps into helpful village drunk Fan Da-Pei, who harbours a secret past.

All the King Hu trademarks are here: corrupt villains, samurai action, girl in disguise, and yes, there's an inn too! There are some marked differences compared to Dragon Gate Inn and A Touch of Zen. Arguably, the story here is more intriguing, as it slowly unravels the motivations and backstories of some of the characters. The characters are better: Cheng Pei Pei has a standout screen presence and beauty that transcended her rote role unlike the female leads in the other two movies. The effeminate and vicious Jade Faced Tiger (played by TV veteran Chan Hung-lit) is probably the most memorable and scene-stealing King Hu villain. And the action sequences are more meticulously thought out and executed. I like that the kungfu here is more "mystical," where kungfu masters can stop waterfalls with their "qigong" or "life energy".

(Interesting tidbit: Yueh Hua (the drunken swordsman) and Chan Hung-lit became prolific TV actors later in life, even facing off each other once again in hit series "The Gem of Life". Sadly, Chan passed away suddenly and too soon in 2009, at the age of 66.)

I enjoyed it so much that I've watched it numerous times, and it was the impetus in my quest to find and watch King Hu's other films. Which finally brings us to...

A Touch of Zen (1971)

The first Chinese action movie to win a Cannes Film Festival award, lauded by filmmakers, studied by scholars, loved by... none? For a film of such stature, you would expect at least a Criterion Collection DVD. I couldn't even find the VCD edition. Someone was selling the out-of-print DVD on Amazon.com in the vicinity of USD$40, which was pricey even for a Criterion Blu-ray. I would expect someone prominent like Ang Lee or Zhang Yimou, who obviously respected King Hu's work, to champion the restoration of his most famous masterpiece.

I bring out this point because, had King Hu shot his movie entirely in daylight, the substandard DVD quality would have sufficed. But there is one long action sequence shot at night and in the dark that is nearly unwatchable because the video was too murky and dark. It definitely ruins the movie because the sequence involves a pivotal showdown among key characters. You may wish to wait for a remastered Blu-ray edition, but it may take a while, or possibly never.

Screencap of A Touch of Zen night action sequence. You can clearly see three Chinese swordsmen fighting each other.

Still, A Touch of Zen is not your usual "wuxia pian". Imagine the "2001 A.D.: A Space Odyssey" of wuxia pian, or a wuxia pian directed by David Lynch. I believe King Hu is trying to create a more artistic and abstract form of wuxia pian. It begins from the point of view of lowly village scholar Ku Shen-chai (Shih Jun, who also played the hero from Dragon Gate Inn), who gets entangled with fugitives on the run from - you guessed it - an evil, corrupt eunuch. Ku does not have a secret past, double life or even kungfu skills, so the first hour is just him poking his nose into the affairs of new arrivals in his village, and being constantly bugged by his mother to take the "government exam". It takes quite a while before the first fight scene arrives, and the action in this movie is more bloody massacre than graceful techniques. Later, the movie abandons Ku on the sidelines and takes a turn for the surreal, and concludes with an open-ended finale consisting of mindboggling Buddhist imagery. I guess its message is that vengeance is a never-ending cycle of violence that corrupts the soul, but admittedly I was actually hoping to see some kickass action.

Missing in action: An inn.

I can appreciate A Touch of Zen for showing the world that a kungfu movie can have artistry and become more than just mere crowdpleasing fares. It's definitely a unique movie worth watching once. But if you're expecting Come Drink With Me Part II, you'd be sorely disappointed. It's hard for me to recommend this movie other than as a required viewing for film students and movie aficionados. The unavailability of the VCDs/DVDs and substandard picture quality do not help either.

Conclusion:

Dragon Gate Inn - Watch it if you're curious about how the "original" is like.

Come Drink With Me - Highly recommended for casual and serious movie lovers alike.

A Touch of Zen - Important landmark for serious movie freaks only.

Review: Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch is a live-action anime with pretty actresses in sexy cosplay taking down samurai monsters, dragons, robots, medieval knights and even the Nazis. It has most of the right elements to indicate a fun time at the movies, but all it got were lacklustre reception at the box office and poor reviews from a majority of critics instead.

As a movie for the masses, it is a failure, primarily because the filmmakers opted for a tone that is a little too bleak and depressing, despite its PG rating. The lead, played by Emily Browning, who starred in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, goes through another series of unfortunate events in Sucker Punch. She escapes the clutches of an abusive stepfather, only to accidentally kill her own sister, which lands her in a nightmarish asylum surrounded by constant threats of sexual abuse or lobotomy, which she re-imagines in her mind as a brothel-cum-burlesque-club. Not exactly the kind of stuff you expect in a blockbuster movie.

Wait a second, you say. How exactly does all the crazy anime stuff come in? In order to "escape" some of her sordid predicaments, she dreams up an elaborate fantasy world where she and her asylum inmates are mercenaries with exceptional skills in gunplay and martial arts; at times a combination of both. It is in these sequences where the movie really shines, as director Zack Snyder shows great relish in mimicking John Woo's gun-fu without constantly shaking the camera. (There was one particularly noteworthy awesome use of an assault rifle.) Such qualities are so rare in action sequences nowadays that I easily soften up to any movies with great action, even if they don't deliver quality stories. See Mortal Kombat, Dead or Alive, the Resident Evil movies, etc.

I think what Snyder was trying to do here is to create an action movie with hot chicks and a little bit more substance than is usually associated with the genre. However, I don't think the seriousness and dark elements go well with the Hong Kong-anime-hybrid-style, but it's no more subversive than any Quentin Tarantino films. The problem lies in the management of expectations. If Snyder had marketed his movie as a homage to exploitation flicks or even as an unapologetic action flick, I believe the backlash wouldn't have been as bad. Personally, I would have dumped the "real world" elements entirely and go for an all-out fantasy setting, throw in some much-missed humour, and the traditional action flick one-liners, of course.

Great if you have a predisposition towards action chicks.
Better, if you're a fan of Jena Malone (a.k.a. "Rocket").
Not so great if you hate dark, depressing movies.

Review: Source Code

Source Code is the kind of brainy science fiction movie that is best enjoyed while knowing as little as possible about the movie. Directed by Duncan Jones, who did another good sci-fi, Moon, Source Code is about a man who finds himself waking in a body of another man and reliving the man's last eight minutes of his life, over and over again. The plot involves finding out why this is all happening. If you have seen Groundhog Day, this movie is similar to that one, but with more explosions. Though that usually means the movie has been "dumbed down" for the masses who can't take anything more intellectually challenging than Transformers 3, thankfully it isn't. A good thriller with a fairly smart and emotional story, supported by a good cast of actors. I truly enjoyed this one. Recommended.


Format: DVD, anamorphic widescreen.
Source: Rental (Arts Brother, Jurong Point 1 Level 3)

Experience: Home, 47-inch LCD with home theatre surround system
Cost: FREE (a reward from Arts Brother's prepaid rental package)

Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I had no hope that this movie would work, until I saw the reviews, which were unexpectedly very positive. Like X-Men: First Class, Rise of the Planet of the Apes (ROTPOTA) is a 'prequel' to the 40-plus-year-old Planet of the Apes. Not a familiar movie to these parts of the world, but familiar with most Americans and considered a science fiction milestone by some. A prequel of a decades-old movie that lacks familiarity, ROTPOTA was destined to fail. Thus, it was a pleasant surprise to find a rousing (no pun intended), heartwarming tale of a genetically intelligent simian who would eventually become the catalyst to the events in the original movie. It's a simple story that relies a lot on performance and direction, and here all of it worked amazingly, even the ape CG. A little bit of Lassie, King Kong 2005, 28 Days Later, and The Great Escape (or Prison Break for you young fellas), the best big movie of 2011 so far. Really!