djlee-2 Reviews

The Warlords (2007)

A film about fraternity

[7/10 · 3 January 2008]

(This comment was deleted by IMDb based on an abuse report filed by another user) Tau Ming Chong is adapted from a previous Hong Kong film Ci Ma, based on a real historical event.

Rather then to tell the story and spoil the interests of reader, I'd like to express some thoughts after watching this film.

It is a film intends to tell a story happened between manhood under the historical background of Qing Dynasty, and it is like what Director stated, this film is about the fraternal relation and emotions.

General Ma, Xinyi/Pang, Qingyun (Jet Li) is a person who gived in the power, while Yang Er-hu (Andy Lau) has deepest beliefs and passions in fraternity among three and Jiang, Wuyang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) never meant to be a leader and was cheated and stood the wrong side. However, Xu, Jinglei's character - Liansheng, appeared to be very ambiguous and most time accessorial.

It revealed that the fraternity can also be very as ugly as darkside of love - cheating, manipulating, betray and adultery. After all, the truth is mostly veiled and even opposited to what are believed.

Transformers (2007)

Machine and Man

[7/10 · 11 July 2007]

I happened to watch this film on China's release date, but the mandarine dubbed version appears to be cheesy, most of time I could not distinguish the talking between Autorots and Decepticon...Fortunately they didn't talk too much! Plot is simple and easier to follow, anyhow special effects are really the CPU of this movie.

Actually I'd rather to say it is largely a value-added product origin ed from its primary comics. It's a good idea to bring humen with these E.T. robots together, as a good complement to original ones.

Another good thing is it is a zero-violence and zero-sex film for general audience, so that Chinese film bureau wouldn't censor any part of this film, so that we can watch this film in full-length, Viva La~

I give it 7 out of 10, and it is largely due to its special effects, not plot though.

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (2005)

Big thumb up

[9/10 · 25 December 2005]

Thankfully Zhang, Yimou is back to make another deeply moved and typical "Zhang's Style" movie and it is wise for him to stop producing further martial art films.

Ken Takakura is acting as Takada, a Japanese fishman whose son is diagnosed incurable disease but refuses to see him for the past unsolvable conflicts between them. Following the clue left on the video tape made by the son, Takada decides to travel thousands of miles from Japan to Li Jiang (Beautiful River) of Yun'nan Province in China, to complete his son's unfinished wish - to shoot a local drama played by local artist Li, Jianmin. After he arrived, a series of unexpected difficulties and events happened between him and local tour guide Qiu, Lin, love child Yangyang and opera actor Li, Jiamin among the other local residents, lead Takada to deeply think and comprehend the relationship between him and his son, and during this process his son finally forgive him from the past.

Audience can not only enjoy the familiar rural scene brought by Zhang, Yimou, but also the superb genuine performances brought by those actors who are just acting with their real names(and Zhang has done this before in previous movies) apart from Ken Takakura. The dialogues are superb, they can be amused, grieved, touched and thoughtful.

It is a rare movie that I can't wait to give my thumb up half-way before the end, and a must-see film can make you smile and giggle with the tears and weeps.

The Promise (2005)

Promisedly disappointment

[5/10 · 18 December 2005]

I had been forced to see a huge hypes bombing all over the places in Beijing, and according to all the news reports there were no any direct critical voices. And after I did watch the movie, it turned to be a huge disappointment and I doubt if the criticism has been banned by media for commercial and Golden Awards reasons?

YES, it is a BAD film. Story is simple and seems wanted to tell something but you may still have to have a script or novel in details on-hand to be able to understand what the earth the director Chen wants to talk about through such dull story(or I doubt if he have the ability to tell in this movie). As the casting stars are mainly not native Mandarin speakers (apart from Liu Ye)and have sort of facetious accent,It is rather making native Mandarin speakers such as me feel upset.It is not an important consideration for non-Chinese speaker but I got to let everybody aware that-- The dialogues in the film is rather awkward and afflictive and It is a film that can be ruined by the accents indeed.

And in terms of CG part, it is really so-so compared with the pre-declaration that it was gonna be "a Chinese Lord of the rings" movie--Anyhow I don't think anybody will dare to allege that again after watching it. For instance, I still felt like watching a PC-game effects at the most costly scene when the thousands of uruses rushing in the valley at the start of the film.

And in terms of martial art part, it is just another application of "Gravity Zero" technics popularised by Hong Kong movie industry.

As a director had ever made masterpieces such as "The Emperor and the Assassin" and "Farewell, My Concubine", Chen Kaige fails to make another remarkable movie ( comparably big investment is exceptional).

The Myth (2005)

Good stunts but bad screenplay writing

[7/10 · 25 September 2005]

It is reported that it was the first time Jackie Chan appeared in screen with ancient dresses (followed by Qin dynasty's customs), he is acting as a Qin's General Men-yi, as well as an contemporary archaeologist as sort of rebirth of that General, called Jack.

I can hardly give the objective and impersonal comments since I am sort of fascinating with reincarnation topics, rebirth or Samsara things, and this film's plot was obviously inspired from them.

This film ended up with all sorts of commercial shells reminded you following names, Indiana Jones, Tomb Rider , Jackie's typical comedic Kung Fu scenes, common love story and exoticism by appearance of that Indian Ms. busty yoga (Mallika Sherawat).

Screenplay is not that good so the flaws and non-explained details are found everywhere, like how an ancient Chinese imperial concubine's painting is found in an Indian mummy tomb is left mystery. And in the scenario of outer space like catacomb, gravity can selectively exist when Jackie needs it to make fight available and disappeared when people needs to fly away.

However, I reckon the scenario of General Meng-Yi's final fight is epic and heroic. Such heroical plot is not often seen in Jackie Chan's countless comedic martial art films, good change. And the Korean actress'(Hee-seon Kim) fairy-like appearance was impressive as well as her face looking.

It is pity that in the end of film, Jack (Jackie)wrote an archaeological book called "The Myth", but in the preface of the book, it was only marked as dedicated to his male friend and colleague, but forgot that loyal and faithful Korean fairy princess, without regarding that she had been waiting for his return over 2000 years.

For those western audiences, they perhaps need to comprehend some basic concepts in this movie are real historical facts, like Immortal drugs and emperor's catacomb, even the story is still fictional.

Feature: In cinema, it was not often happened that the audiences didn't leave the cinema even the caption was already on, because Jacky always like to show a big No-Good screen shoot features and disclose the stunning a bit. There was an European girl left during the early caption.