Passenger - Movie Review

*SPOILER ALERT*

What was it about?

Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, why was I surprised that it was, indeed, a love story? Well it was a romance packaged as a sci-fi, to be exact.

The story started with Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) waking up from his hibernation, which was supposed to last 120 years. But due to a malfunction, he woke up 90 years earlier than scheduled. Alone on the unmanned spaceship, his attempts of putting himself back into hibernation failed. After a year of suffering, he then made a difficult decision - he broke another hibernation pot inhabited by Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence), in desperation of company.

Did it meet my expectations?

For the record, I went into the cinema expecting a sci-fi thriller. Can you blame me or anyone that had watch the trailer? The trailer practically labelled it a sci-fi movie! I'd also like to say that the science of it was not very convincing.

Jim's space suit sustained the heat vent from the fusion reactor. Seriously?

Jim got thrown out from the vent and was travelling in the backward direction of the spaceship. He was still in vicinity after 5 seconds or so. Wasn't the spaceship travelling at half of light speed?

Jim threw the steel door that he used as shield in the backward direction, causing himself a forward thrust. Erm... I'm not really sure about this but, really?

I also thought the story would open at the point when Aurora woke up. And then she'd meet Jim and at this moment she (as well as the audience) wouldn't know yet, about his intentionally breaking her hibernation pot. As the story moved, she'd discover it from Arthur, and so would the audience. Hence instilling the suspense, the twist, and the flash-back story telling technique.

But instead the movie chose to do it the opposite way - bringing in the story from Jim's point of view. It probably wanted to portray Jim's stranded situation, his helplessness and desperation, which I thought was very successful.

Did I like it?

I loved it. Of course I was a little disappointed that the romantic element played a big part of it, instead of the sci-fi element. But the story was very refreshing that I was able to forgive a misleading trailer.

Elfen Lied - Anime Review

Anime has been one of my pastimes during the last few months. I've been watching some famous ones that anime fans would consider classic - Steins;Gate, Puella Madoka Magica, etc. Hours ago I just finished Elfen Lied. When you look for "greatest anime of all time" in YouTube, you almost always get Elfen Lied in the list. I'm not gonna lie - it got my attention due to its gory content.

I would have to say, it didn't live up to my expectations at all.

Well, here is my SPOILER review.

The Characters

The first thing I have to say is the characters are freaking flat. None of them is likable. None of them makes me feel emotionally attached to. None of them is really fully developed. 

We have Kouta, who had a dark childhood from watching his little sister and father being killed by Lucy / Nyu whom he considered as a friend. We have Lucy / Nyu, who as a child was bullied and betrayed by normal humans. We have Mayu, who was sexually abused by her stepfather. We have Kurama, who lost his newborn and wife, because his newborn was a Diclonius. I'm supposed to sympathize with these characters I guess. But they are so poorly-developed and so lacked of vibe. And the flashbacks didn't help either. At times I felt myself waiting for the emotional touch and it felt like it almost reach me, but then disappeared quickly.

What disturbs me most is, they didn't even try to explain why Lucy / Nyu was having split personality. I mean, she had been living her past few years in a lab facility and then suddenly when she escaped, she had split personality??? That's just too convenient for the plot, which brings me to the next point.

The Plot

The anime opened with intriguing gory scenes of a Diclonius escaping from a experimental lab facility. Then it built up to pre-climax with explanations on events in the past, including the childhood of Lucy / Nyu and how she befriended Kouta. There were little hints at the first few episodes signalling something happened in the past, and then flashbacks towards the ending which supposed to disclose the "twist". Well in short, the big twist was - *drumroll* - that Lucy / Nyu as a child was the killer of Kouta's family. I think this is the most interesting part in the whole of the series.

The gory scenes were, well gory, and that's it. They didn't leave a strong impression on me and neither were they disturbing, particularly #35 (Mariko) who was Kurama's daughter. I felt that more could be done to this character. She was supposedly raised in a lab since she was born and isolated from all other human beings. Her becoming of a blood thirsty killer and her attachment to the idea of Kurama being a father were not well-explained and simply unconvincing.

And what was the experiments conducted in the lab facility anyway? What exactly were they trying to achieve? It didn't seem to be solely for academical purposes. Towards the ending it was shown the director of the lab, Kakuzawa took off his wig and revealed that he, too was a Diclonius. Quite a reveal but I needed to ask - and then what? And in the same scene we saw that Arakawa decided to hide the identity of Kouta, being related to Lucy / Nyu - again, for convenience of the plot.

The character of Bando seemed very redundant as well. He didn't make any significant contributions or advancements to the plot. And the part where Kurama fixed his artificial hand in exchange for him to kill Mariko - first of all, why did he think Bando can kill her when she is so-all-powerful? Second of all, how did he even know Bando would be at the beach? 

The Ending

I found myself asking "that's it?" towards the last scene - surprised to find that it concluded with a mere 13 episodes. I've always liked short anime but, this one just left you hanging. Its open ending is the worst in the history of open endings.

The last scene led us to believe that Lucy / Nyu survived and came back to Kouta. If so, how? The organization behind the experimental lab facility appeared to be having quite the influence with the government, the police and the special forces. It couldn't be this simple that they left her alone after all these hard work of capturing her alive. 

All in all, Elfen Lied was a total disappointment and certainly overrated in my opinion.

The Wind Rises - The Review

Le vent se lève! ... il faut tenter de vivre!
~ Paul Valéry ~

*SPOILERS ALERT*

It's a story of a man who put his aviation dream in the first place, and the love of his life the second. At least, that's how I interpret it.

Jiro Horikoshi was a aircraft designer who created the Mitsubishi A5M, to be used in the war - a war which he strongly opposed to. None of the aircraft survived. 

Knowing that his dream and career were always more important, his wife still support him nonetheless. She chose to leave him so she could die alone from tuberculosis, which was incurable.

I guess it's supposed to be inspiring. But to me, it is just damn sad. It may looks like he had accomplished a lot, and that he succeed in his dream. But I feel otherwise.

Below is a trailer of the movie, with the soundtrack that I really like.

那些年，我们一起追的女孩。You Are The Apple of My Eye

“成長，最残酷的部分就是，女孩子永遠比同年齡的男孩子成熟。“
(The most cruel thing about growing up, is that the girls usually mature earlier than the boys.)

It was not the type of movie that melt your heart, nor the type that feed on your tears. But it somehow managed to leave a profound impression to the audience. After the movie ended and the credits rolled, you remained at your seat, reminiscing about your first love, your young stupidity, your cowardice, things you should've done that just might change something.

My male friends told me they can very much relate themselves to the movie - the love that slipped (那些年错过的爱情).




Ke Jing-Teng (柯景騰) was a prankster and a mischievous student. He was caught masturbating during class and therefore was punished to be seated in front of Shen Jia-Yi (沈佳宜), a pretty girl famous of her outstanding academic achievement. They despise each other at the beginning but eventually developed mutual feelings for each other.

Asian Horror Movies

Being a fan of horror movies - especially those of Japanese, Korean and Thai - discovering this website was the best thing that ever happened. Asian Horror Movies is a website with thousands of Japanese, Korean, Thai, Hongkie and Indonesian horror movies to choose from. And it allows you to watch it online without needing to download anything. Though you need to wait for it to buffer but it's pretty fast if you have a good internet connection.

For some of the movies, the player sucks. The others, the player is good enough. All depends on your luck. Currently watching Phobia (2008) and the player is a good one. :)

The NeverEnding Story

Watching The NeverEnding Story certainly brings back my childhood memories. The film was released in 1984, the year which I was born.



I remember I couldn't understand a word they said, not having English as a mother tongue. However I was deeply fascinated. I had watched it dozens of times as a kid. And today, I decided to relive this experience. This time, with a better understanding of the whole story.

The story was about this boy Bastian who decided he should listen to his dad and stop his imagination and daydreaming, before he got hold of a mysterious book which was "not safe" for him to read. Curious, he ventured into the world of Fantasia, which was a world of human fantasy. Fantasia was being consumed by the "nothingness" because human was losing hope. A child warrior, Atreyu was chosen to begin a quest to save Fantasia. Bastian soon realized that while he was following Atreyu's adventure, Atreyu was following his as well.

A series of Movie Reviews

Inception

The best movie I’ve seen this year – creative, intelligent and well-developed. I had really high expectations when I walked into the cinema due to good reviews from friends around me. And it did not let me down. It’s a three-hour-movie that leaves you wondering with an open ending (to me, at least). And may I say that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was so cool. =)

Shutter Island

Predictable twist at the ending. But overall, it's worth spending two hours to watch it. Not a bad movie. It's a little boring generally as there were more talking than action. And I didn't like it that the movie constantly try to scare its audience with disturbing scenes which I find not so disturbing after all. I mean, it's a movie about mentally-disturbed people I strongly expect something better than this.

The Descent Part 2

Blood, blood, blood, and more blood. There's nothing else to say, except that I enjoyed The Descent Part 1 better.

After.Life

It was a hell of a disappointment. The first 30 minutes of the movie was great. The more I watched it the more I had high expectations for it. Maybe my expectations went too high though. And Liam Neeson's acting was pretty unconvincing to me.

Repomen

Hollywood’s pathetic struggle to show that they can still produce movies with creative storyline, romance, action all in one. What they didn’t know is that creative and lame is just a thin line away. As the movie rolled on all I could think about was how lame and how illogical it was. Anyone who has watched it please explain to me:

1. Why the government just let the Union do all the killings?

2. Even when the bank approves a loan they make sure people can pay it back. Why would the Union sell their products to people who can’t afford it, and then take the product back, just to sell it as a second hand product?

3. Are the repomen really qualified to do a surgeon’s job?

I don’t believe I’ve given out any spoilers but even if I did it wouldn’t matter. Because the movie is so shitty, it’s not worth wasting your time.

Paranormal Activity

I just watched Paranormal Activity and for the first time in years, I was totally freaked out from watching a horror movie. It's filmed in a "Blair Witch Project" kind of approach where the audience get to have the first person (unlike the usual third person) point of view watching this movie.

Synopsis:
Micah and Katie are a couple newly moved into a house and they started to notice unusual noises - in the middle of the night they hear footsteps, knocking on doors and all kinds of sounds. Thus Micah got hold of a camera hoping to record the paranormal activities happening around the house.

Review:
There's no hideous-looking ghosts or demons that jumps out suddenly into the screen to scare you, there's no blood, no scary music to build up the tension only to hear a sudden loud noise that makes you jump out of your skin. Nothing of that sort. What really makes this movie scary is the silence. Sometimes when it's totally quiet and the camera is static, you'd just hold your breath and anticipate for something to happen. And that few seconds feels like years. And because of the lack of hideous ghosts and demons and exaggerated scary sound effects, the film was so real you'd forget that you're actually watching a movie instead of a documentary.

*Spoilers Alert*

And the climax (i.e. ending) really did freak me out, especially the part where Katie just stood beside the bed looking at Micah sleeping. The ending was neither predictable nor surprising, and the weird things that happened were never explained. But then again this is what makes it looks so real - some things can't be explained.

Conclusion:
Highly recommended. Although at the beginning it was a little boring.
Rating 7.5 out of 10.

Avatar

Avatar

Director : James Cameron

Writer : James Cameron

Length : 2.5 hours (approximately)
Rate (by me) : 8/10

The humans discover a valuable substance on planet Pandora inhabited by a primitive race called the Na'vi, who are rich with their own culture and beliefs. The expensive substance that the humans are after lies beneath the home of the Na'vi, the hometree. The humans have either to gain their trust and make them leave the hometree, or they have to drive them away by force. Thus the human scientists invent the Avatar, a remote-controlled Na'vi figure genetically grown by mixing human's DNA and the Na'vi's. Jake Sully's mission was to use his Avatar to bond with the natives, study them and find a way to drive them out of their home.

The last time I watched a nice film like this was like years ago. Story/script well-written (with moderate sense of humour), good directorship, and excellent actors. I like that the Pandora and the Na'vi race was designed to the very detail, the animals and plants, the culture, the bliefs, the hometree etc. I feel that it's a beautiful culture and religion.

And they had portrayed well the humanity issue. That it isn't the right thing to do to kill people for money, even when the people are not your own species/race.

I know the story doesn't sound impressive or anything. But you can tell that they actually put in enough effort to make the film and you can feel the characters are alive. And I've totally enjoyed the whole 2.5 hours in the cinema.

Other feedbacks I heard:
- Some of the scenes and the animals resembles those of Final Fantasy X. No comments. Never played that game.
- The human interface machanical gunner thingy resembles those of Matrix 3. Totally agree.
- It steals the matrix concept. Man plugs into machine, man wakes up with a different body. Yeah, kind of. But that doesn't make Avatar a bad idea/story and moreover, it's quite a different concept.
- It shares the same storyline as Pocahontas. Pfft... What the hell? It's two totally different things!!! How can anyone compare a James Cameron's and a Disney??? It's like comparing an apple and a house!!! And I certainly cannot explain how an apple and a house is different pfft... The only thing about Avatar is that, humans discover wealth in a place and they want it for themselves, thus exists war. But this happens EVERYWHERE, not just in Pocahontas (pfft...). I mean, it's something you see from everyday's life. If wanna say like this then Avatar resembles A LOT of other films actually. Well like I said, the originality of the story is not impressive or anything but what has caught us glued to our seats is the sincerity we feel from the crew who made the film (i.e. not like "cincai" made just to earn money from us, the people).

P.S. Individuals views/comments are respected.

Coraline

It's been a long time since I've seen an animation as good and as creative as this. From the director of Nightmare Before Christmas, Henry Selick, Coraline is another must-see, especially if you're a fan of Tim Burton's. Although Tim Burton did not participate in the making of this movie, Coraline somehow resembles some of his work - the genre of dark humour and fantasy.


Coraline is based on horror novel written by British author Neil Gaiman which was published in 2002. The movie quickly developed the characters and build up the tension at the very beginning. Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning) is a 11-year-old girl who detest her mom (voiced by Teri Hatcher) and dad, her new home, and her life. She discovered a secret door that leads her to another parallel world which is almost the same as her real life, only ten times better. Instead of her ignorant parents, she has the most loving parents; instead of the talkative Wybie, she has a mute Wybie (yesssss... mute); instead of boring neighbours, she has neighbours who invite her over to watch circus and stage play. It seems perfect... with only one tiny problem - she has to have buttons stitched on her eyes if she wants to stay there forever.

Yes I know it sounds totally creepy. And trust me, that's NOT the only creepy thing in the movie. I will refrain myself from revealing too much here though. It'd be a spoiler otherwise.


There's a character that I must introduce. I usually never really like the animals sidekick in an animation but this talking black cat (voiced by Keith David, whom I have no idea who that is), it's so cute!!! And wise. And funny. And cool.

Anyway, no matter how much I enjoyed watching Coraline, I am strongly against parents bringing children younger than 12 years old to watch it. It will only make them have nightmares every night for the rest of their lives. (Hehe...)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Movie Review

I must say it's much better than the original short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's more detailed and refined. A very good script indeed. And the way the story was brought out was exactly what I had imagined. Not at all a disappointment.

I especially like the story told by Daisy at the beginning about a man who made a clock that went backward (counterclock wise), hoping to, in some way or another, reverse time and bring back his son who died in war.

It's the saddest story. It's the saddest way to live like Benjamin Button.

Inpiring Quotes:

You can be mad as a mad dog at the way things went. You can swear and curse fate. But when it comes to the end, you have to let go.

We are meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?

Life being what it is, a series of intercepting lines of incidents, out of anyone's control.

Will you still love me when I have acne, when I wet the bed, when I''m afraid what's up the stairs?

Loving you is worth everything to me.

Way Back Into Love

This is a song from the movie "Music and Lyrics" starring Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore. Never really had the chance to properly sit down and watch the movie and I don't think the story is anything special anyway. But I like the soundtrack. The melody is just okay but I love the lyrics, especially the part:

I've been hiding all my hopes and dreams away
Just in case I ever need them again someday

It just sounds so... Deep.
Anyway watch the video and sing with the lyrics. I'm sure you'll feel what I feel. Enjoy...

p.s. I didn't know Hugh Grant can sing. Not bad...

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I am anticipating for this movie! Yes I am! The title itself already caught my attention. It sounds bizarre and I like everything that's bizarre. So I surf the net trying to find the trailer and the synopsis of the story. And I came across this. It's a website where you can read all kinds of novels, short stories, poems and plays online. (I even found Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Will be reading that next time.) Took me about 2 hours to finish reading The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was weird, bizarre, disturbing, and... weird.

The original short story is different from the movie synopsis. It's about a child who was born with a seventy-year-old self and when he was "growing up", the aging process reversed. And my first thought was... How the hell did a seventy-year-old man with a seventy-year-old physical appearance get out of his mother's womb? Anyway, never mind that. The story then went on with how his parents deal with this disturbing phenomena and how he fell in love for the first time at the age of twenty (with a fifty-year-old body and mind). The ending was quite predictable. He "grew" to become a baby; and died, I supposed. Towards the end I felt so disturbed, partly because of the story itself, mainly it was about the author's indifferent tone that I sensed. Despite that, I'm still looking forward to watching the movie. Maybe will write a review for that. Stay tuned. ;)

Love Letters of Great Men

Browsing through Shinyin's blog I came across this love letter which sounded strangely familiar. Googling it made me remember that it was quoted from Sex and the City by Sarah Jessica Parker. I remember it kind of touched me.

Good morning, on July 7

Though still in bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved, now and then joyfully, then sadly, waiting to learn whether or not fate will hear us - I can live only wholly with you or not at all - Yes, I am resolved to wander so long away from you until I can fly to your arms and say that I am really at home with you, and can send my soul enwrapped in you into the land of spirits - Yes, unhappily it must be so - You will be the more contained since you know my fidelity to you. No one else can ever possess my heart - never - never - Oh God, why must one be parted from one whom one so loves. And yet my life in V is now a wretched life - Your love makes me at once the happiest and the unhappiest of men - At my age I need a steady, quiet life - can that be so in our connection? My angel, I have just been told that the mailcoach goes every day - therefore I must close at once so that you may receive the letter at once - Be calm, only by a calm consideration of our existence can we achieve our purpose to live together - Be calm - love me - today - yesterday - what tearful longings for you - you - you - my life - my all - farewell. Oh continue to love me - never misjudge the most faithful heart of your beloved.

ever thine
ever mine
ever ours

Found a website with a list of love letters written by famous people. Just thought of sharing it with you people.

The Day The Earth Stood Still

Starring my favourite actor, Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly, The Day The Earth Stood Still is a remake of the 1951 version. Keanu Reeves play Klaatu, the alien who came to the Earth with unknown intentions. He had lost some weight and was looking as stunning as ever (though a bit wrinkles here and there). And when dressed in suit, he can melt any girl's heart haha!

Back to the movie, my comment is, highly extremely very disappointing. The script itself was not exactly well-written, as the story flow at some points were very coarse and unrefined, especially towards the end when Klaatu suddenly changed his mind and decided to give humans another chance. (Am I revealing too much?) And the huge destroying robot, for some reason it reminded me of a Doraemon story. It was pretty lame to me.

There were not any oooooohhhs and aaaaaahhhhs in this film. In fact, there is so little to talk about you would straight away forget you ever watched this the moment you walk out of the cinema.

In conclusion, besides the script I have nothing else to complain about. But then again, the script is about all of it, isn't it?

Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea

"Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea" is Hayao Miyazaki's latest animation. Being a No. 1 fan of Miyazaki's, I had been anticipating the release of the DVD ever since I've heard of this movie. Finally having a chance to watch it, I'm sad to say it's kind of a disappointment.

The story itself is not attractive, neither is it captivating. At some points I found it difficult to concentrate on the progress. It's either because I have a very distracting movie companion or because of the movie itself.

The story is about... erm... a... mermaid, I supposed, named Ponyo who had, out of curiosity, ran away from home. She (though it was not obvious at the beginning that it's a female, but towards the end I suppose we can make that conclusion) met 5-year-old Sosuke and had taken a great liking to him. Meanwhile Ponyo's worried dad was looking for her to bring her back. And when he finally did, Ponyo declared her choice of becoming a human and live with Sosuke.

I feel that it is not convincing that the bond between Ponyo and Sosuke is very strong since there wasn't much elaboration in this matter. And yeah, the story sounds somewhat like "The Little Mermaid" from Walt Disney a number of years ago. But in this case, it's a love story between two 5-year-old kids! (If you can call that a love story...) I can't help thinking realistic... My movie companion also mentioned that there are many unexplained things.

Anyway maybe I should watch it again. It's possible that I've missed something. I mean, I didn't like "Howl's Moving Castle" that much the first time I watched it; and I don't expect anyone to produce another miracle like "Spirited Away". And for the rest of Miyazaki's fans out there, since you've watched all of his series, why not give this a try as well? Anyone wanna watch I'll be glad to lend it.

Mirrors

I did not really have high expectations when I walked into the theater, to be honest. I figured this would just be another watch-and-forget movie. And I was right.

Mirrors is loosely based on a Korean horror movie in year 2003 - Into The Mirror. But except for the ending (and the mirrors of course), I can't find any resemblances. I would say both are equally bad.

Like any other conventional scary movies, the most important element to scare the viewers is... the sound effects. And yeah, I got scared, but it was not a creepy feeling, not the kind where after days of watching and you recall back the scenes you'd get goosebumps. And sadly, I don't remember the last horror film I saw that gave me this type of feeling and satisfaction.

There was a girl sitting next to me in the theater who was damn scared, kept hugging her boyfriend. This had disturbingly reminded me of a very bad experience I had when watching a ghost movie with a guy friend a very long time ago. So I made damn sure I don't repeat the same mistake with ZiLin, the guy I was watching this movie with. SukTeng, you know what I mean. And I'd like to assure you nothing dramatic happened.

And... Right, back to the movie. So there was blood, there were people dying horribly, there were ghosts suddenly popping up, there were mirrors, there were mysteries waiting to be solved and people to be saved... Up until 20 minutes before the movie ended, it was still acceptably frightening. But when a 60-year-old nun turned into a supposedly-possessed-by-demon-monster, it took me a great effort to choke back my laughter. I supposed the script just couldn't go on anymore but they simply had to put an end to the story. So this is where the monster conveniently came in. In a nutshell, if you have too much time to spend and too much money to waste, you are most welcome to watch Mirrors.

Wall-E

Wall-E stands for Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class. Their sole purpose of survival was to clear up the garbage left on earth so that the people can come back to Earth to live. The beginning of the movie was so sad. I just couldn't bear looking at Wall-E working alone on Earth collecting garbage. And the most pitiful is the part when he had to collect the second-hand spare parts from his fellow out-of-service Wall-E robots to replace his own. I find it quite unbelievable that he was able to develope human instincts from time to time. But this is an animation, so it's still acceptable.

It then started to become interesting following the introduction of the female robot, Eve (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator), who came back to Earth to look for sign of life - plants. The first half of the movie revolved around the two robots - Wall-E who fell in love with Eve; and also the extremely aggressive Eve.

There was not a single conversation before the appearance of the people, as in the humans. But just like what KokChiang and ZiLin said, a good animation/cartoon does not need conversations, take the classical Woddy Wood Pecker, Pink Panther etc.

And Wall-E is sooooooo cute!


The movie emphasized on the sense of touch. The people in the future eventually forget about the importance of the sense of touch. Touching is so important it shows passion, love and care. Even robots need to be touched. My colleague said the holding hands part means it is a movie to watch with the guy who's after you. But I think that's just crap. It's a good movie no matter with whom you watch it.

Just like any other Pixar production, it is moving, funny, cute, and irrelevant, especially at the ending. But then again, it is an animation, so it is still accpetable. I'll refrain myself from revealing too much. You guys should go watch it yourselves. It's another one of Pixar production that you can't miss!

Sparrow

A Johnny To production - one of the best movie director/producer from Hong Kong. Thus before the movie Sparrow (watch the trailer here.) actually ended, I was very much confident that something good would eventually come out of it.

The film started by introducing Simon Yam, sewing his own pants (or something like that, couldn't tell whether he was sewing a button on his pants or actually sewing his pants), with a very cheerful-sounding music playing in the background. It simply sounded weird cause I expected a typical Hong Kong style good-guys-versus-bad-guys-chase. But the cheerful soundtrack and a happy Simon Yam just don't fit in.

Things finally gotten serious when the film moved on to Simon and his fellow colleagues' daily routine - having breakfast together and then "hoi gong" (start work)... picking-pockets. Up until this point the story plot is still understandable. But for the next 30 minutes or so, the director gave a very out-of-the-ordinary introduction to Kelly Lin, one of the main characters. Kelly crossed paths with the 4 pick-pockets (sparrows) intentionally, trying to... seduce them (seemed to me), maybe. This could be the longest 30 minutes of my life. The slow-motion and unexplainable scenes could definitely bore you to tears. Halfway through the movie, the true purpose of her encounters with them finally revealed, though Zi Lin already could guessed at the beginning and told me before this already.

I have to agree with Zi Lin that the storyline was too simple, without unexpected twists. And the action sequence, to my surprise, was very limited. I believe that the story itself is quite fresh, it just needs some spices, a little bit of furnishing here and there, and LESS artistic/slow-motion scenes (the slow motion parts are very much like Johnny To's style though). I think that it has a lot of space for improvement, and I mean A LOT.

I watched this movie with ShinYin. She had some very interesting comments on this movie too.

watch Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese, HK dramas online

I was randomly surfing the net when I came across this website that allows you to watch Korean, Japanese, Taiwanese and Hong Kong dramas and movies online. For those who do not like to download dramas and movies (like me), this would be a good site to go. Truly feeding your drama addiction, http://www.mysoju.com/ provides a long list of dramas/movies (mostly Korean and Japanese) for your viewing pleasure. I find it quite convenient as I do not like to use bitcomet. Although I noticed a few of "under repair" dramas and movies, but the list is long enough for me to look for dramas that I've never watch before.

I'm now watching 1 litre of tears. A heart-warming Japanese series that tells a true story of a 15-year-old girl who had an incurable disease called spinocerebellar ataxia; and how she cope with the chronic disease that slowly destroyed her nervous system, taking away her ability to walk, speak, move, and understand. As I write I'm currently on episode 7, there's four more to go and already my eyes are watering like nobody's business. I usually am not easy to cry when watching movies. Any healthy living human beings should watch this, it made you realize how lucky you are to be alive, to be able to do things that you do everyday.