GarryJohal Reviews

Fei saa fung chung chun (2010)

Hong Kong version of Lock, Stock & 2 Smoking Barrels...

[5/10 · 20 May 2010]

...But not as good.

This film is a rather odd combination of humor, violence and tightly intertwined plot lines. It borrows heavily from Snatch and Lock Stock, which is not necessarily a bad thing. At times overacted, it tends to substitute flashy editing for meaty story and characterization. There is a fair bit of over-acting and it tends to get quite boring at several stages.

Overall, it's not a bad movie, but far from great. If you don't mind a pedestrian movie that's more amusing than earth-shattering, this would suit you fine. If you want a proper movie, catch this on DVD and spend your money on a different ticket.

Death Note: The Last Name (2006)

Thrilling to the Last

[10/10 · 28 December 2006]

Death Note 2 is a brilliantly done movie. It's the thriller that other movies wish they could grow up to be. I can't think of any major flaw with it. The acting was good, unlike some other Japanese movies which have good plots or ideas which are watered down by poor acting or special effects. It did feel quite stretched out though, it's more than 2 hours long. But that only made the plot that much more twisting and kept the audience guessing. There were some scenes that were a tad clichéd, but it lacked the predictable plot twist that we're so accustomed to in so many Hollywood flicks. The pace was brilliant and kept the movie fresh.Even though it was longer than 2 hours I barely felt it. It's a very entertaining and carefully thought out movie. The director did not screw it up by trying to outdo the anime or manga, and it didn't go up its own butt with social commentary. It was immensely thrilling, engaging and fiendishly clever. A very good movie from Japan, especially after years of poorly made horror films trying to ride on The Ring's success.

Beneath Still Waters (2005)

Waste of time

[2/10 · 26 August 2006]

This movie is terrible. I don't know what the director was doing and I'm sure he felt the same way. The acting was terrible. There were characters with American, Spanish, British and what sounded like dutch, accents. I guess realism wasn't the number 1 priority. The acting was terrible, at best. That is more than I can say for the 'special effects' which comprised mainly of slow-motion(how 80s) and painfully clumsy green screen work. The monsters were about as scary as something out of an Ed Wood movie. I've seen toddlers make scarier monsters from play-dough. The plot was neither going here nor there. It was clichéd and methodical, yet still managed to be quite unfathomnnable. It seems the director was writing the script spontaneously and whatever popped into his head was hastily squeezed in. This movie is an insult to anyone who may have the misfortune to endure 92 minutes of unprofessional directing, poor special effects, poorer acting and an altogether mediocre performance and story line. I am still very surprised that this even made it to a theater and even more surprised I didn't walk out of it halfway. I guess it's like a gruesome car-crash where you cannot divert your eyes away even though you should. But in this case I'd rather be in the car crash and be spared the movie.

Talking Cock the Movie (2002)

Bad is an understatement

[1/10 · 9 February 2006]

I paid several dollars to watch this film. I endured several minutes of rubbish that i saw paraded on the theater screen and i left the theater feeling tired, used and raped. This is the worst film that i have ever seen. It was poorly made, badly acted, and even the obscenities were partially censored, with no, not bleeps, but chirps. Actual bird chirps. The sketches were too long, lacking any real bite, the acting absolute rubbish, the humor amateur and childish at best. I myself am from Singapore and i tried, i really tried to give this film a chance. I know that good actors are unheard of here, I know censorship is brutal here,I know it is difficult to produce a movie with vulgarities, racism andsubversion here. Thus i really tried to close one eye to all the movie's shortcomings, but truly, apart from the lacklustre technical aspect of the movie, it really is crap. The writing, the script, the jokes, even the essence of it is rubbish. At some points it had some hope,some of the race stereotype-bashing was going somewhere. But alas, just when i thought the film was going to redeem itself, it steered back to its ultra-safe, better not screw around or we might get sued or written about in the forum page/create bad reviews/be accused of being unpatriotic etc and proved itself to be an only slightly better attempt than getting an overweight, diseased, STDed hippopotamus' dung spatter on canvas and calling it art.

Sin City (2005)

Graphic Novel was better

[7/10 · 29 January 2006]

Even though this was a good movie, it just didn't have the bite that Frank Miller's graphic novel had. i guess it just shows that most times, when a novel, comic or graphic novel is represented is a film format, it has to be adjusted for that very medium. for example, the novel TRAINSPOTTING, is very different from the movie, yet both the film and the book managed to capture the essential essence of what trainspotting is about. there's a similar feel, even though they're differently presented. you can't really turn an acclaimed novel into an excellent film by copying it word for word and converting that into film.one has to transform it to fit the medium of film. because what works in written word may not work the same way on film;unless of course its some rubbish that Dan Brown wrote, which reads more like a movie script than a real novel anyway. one example that springs to mind when i think about the Sin City film, is that scene where the wolf is taking a bit out of Kevin. It's almost an exact replica of that scene in the graphic novel, same picture almost. Yet in movie format, it really does not deliver as much of an impact as is does in the graphic novel form. However, i have to say that my bias is a result of my having read the graphic novel before seeing the movie, thus there were certain expectations involved. There was already a certain standard in my mind that the movie had to achieve for it to be worthy of the graphic novel in terms of quality. If i had done the opposite(seen the movie first then read the graphic novel) i might have a different opinion. however i think its important to remember which came first. The movie is merely a copy of the graphic novel, however it is in the graphic novel that the originality and genius lies.

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

essence of southpark summed up

[10/10 · 25 December 2005]

all the aspects that matt stone and trey parker tried to infuse in the southpark series has been jam packed beautifully into this movie. it's managed to cram in everything from huge amounts of profanity, scatological references and poignantly satirized the kind of myopic self-righteousness shown by many of these so called 'parents'groups' and family TV morons. the movie is extremely funny, extremely offensive and the 'songs' are incredible. from unlce fu**er to carl's mom's a b*tch, to blame canada. and if you find it distasteful you are probably one of those drones who finds gardening magazines adrenaline pumpingly edgy, pushing the envelope.

'15' (2002)

good stuff

[9/10 · 19 June 2005]

Yes non-Singaporean's can't see what's the big deal about this film. Some of the references in this film fly right over the head of foreign viewers and mostly Singaporeans are the ones who would actually 'get' it. But i plead with you, foreigner, look at the other crap that's been churned out from Singapore and compare it to this film. It's like comparing a mule's diarhhoea chunks to a little diamond. This film is the first to truly show some the singapore's seedy underbelly - something the forces that be, pretend does not exist. And there's a part in the film where a gangster(ah-beng in our unique colloquial 'ingris') curses in 4 languages, namely Tamil English Malay and Hokkien. Well the truth is most of us can and do do that all the time. The sad thing is that viewers from foreign contries will have an easier time getting their oily little claws on this gem, in its country of origin, it was banned initially, only to be given and R-rating, and that too with about 20 cuts to it. It's nice to know you that one of the best, creative, edgy and original films ever created would be easier for you to obtain unadulterated, uncensored; halfway across the world than in your own nation.

Catwoman (2004)

weak

[2/10 · 12 June 2005]

I gave this movie a 2 out of 10, and i was being extremely generous. what kind of a movie has the evil arch-villain as the leader of a cosmetics company whose weapon to take over the world is......face cream that turns your face rock hard. it's truly sad how watery this movies was. also, did you notice that most of the background music had female vocals on it, as if trying to reinforce the pathetic lady-hero, a woman-can-accomplish-anything theme. now I'm not being a misogynist, but sometimes you shouldn't milk a cow till it dies of dehydration. the plot was immature, the dialogue so predictable, the acting so fake and forced, i hope this serves as a reminder to us about how important proper direction and focus is, and when it is not there, this is the kind of movie that materializes.