Hendy's Blog
A Better Tomorrow II
I've seen this in TV before, but never watched it in full. It's another melodramatic gangster movie just like the prequel. Though the actions and drama are acceptable, the plot line is not as much. I felt the characters are suicidal in the end. Some have reason to, but many don't have strong reason to. Though it's kinda cool in the end, but it just felt not right.
Anyway, it's still a good movie. It has better actions compared to the prequel. I love the part when Ti Lung used katana to finish some baddies. Kill 'em in style he did. Repeat it again and again I did. Ti Lung was a kung fu actor in the past. So it's like back to nature for him.
Story wise, I think it's not as good and dramatic as the prequel. A bit unfocused I think. Not a surprise considering Tsui Hark and John Woo fought over the direction of the movie.
Chow Yun Fat is also back with a cool trick. Sucking lighter's fire into his mouth. Damn. I bet people were getting their lips burned after watching this movie. One interesting thing, the big bad boss is always wearing white suit in both movies.
Conclusion? Watch it. You won't regret it. However, the first one is still better. Why? Because I can't wait for Mark to kill the baddies whereas I don't really care in this one.
Labels: movie
Hard Boiled
Let's just say that Hard Boiled lives up to its fame. Chow Yun Fat and
Tony Leung duo is very cool. I especially like Tony Leung's character. Cool, skillful, yet looks innocent. In this movie, he sometimes looks like a normal kid.
Just a normal kid
Tony Leung
Never knew that Hong Kong made cult movies too. I thought it only happens in Japan, Korea, and rest of the world.
A Better Tomorrow and Hard Boiled have what I consider cult movie elements and I'm going to review Hard Boiled from that point of view.
- Unnecessary killing. 307 died on weapon smuggler raid. Need I say more?
- Exaggerated effect: shotgun hitting an empty car caused explosion from inside.
- Cameo appearance of movie crew. John Woo is the bar owner.
- Something different from other movie: the 2 minutes 42 seconds long take. I'm still impressed they can do it. It seems to be much more difficult than Oldboy's corridor fight scene. Plus using shotgun as main weapon of choice? Where else, man.
One weakness is in the storyline department. Feels unrealistic to me. Where in the world a single cop raid a gangster's war? And the hospital scene, can't they wait and slowly clear the patient first, without arising suspicion? After all they don't know that the police know where's their base.
Or capture them when they're outside their nest? Need proof? Send a disguised agent, take picture, prosecute them. Finally, (warning: spoiler till the end), Tony's death looks suicidal. Why did he do that? If he's alive, the
Stranglehold game will have 2 cool main characters for sure!
Labels: movie
A Better Tomorrow
After reading about Stranglehold game at
Joystiq, I was a bit interested and one of the
comment refers me to a movie called A Better Tomorrow.
After a
Wikipedia time burning, I came to know that it is the movie that starts it all. A movie that starts
gun fu and
heroic bloodshed. Well, that's a good to watch movie then.
First, I skipped directly to the action scenes. Not so interesting, I've seen better, I thought. Then I watched the movie in full and it's really a good movie. The action scene, when combined with the storyline, becomes much cooler because I couldn't wait to see Mark (Chow Yun Fat) go and kill those baddies.
On the storyline side, it's a romantic gangster kind of thing. Ah, I'm not so good at describing it. I'm not a movie critic after all.
So this is the kind of movies that my parents' generation were watching. They surely had a good time with these kind of movies around. And so do I because my next movie to watch will be
Hard Boiled, with more action, more bloodshed, and more
body count. Surprisingly, Hard Boiled is number 3 in movie body count (307 bodies), after 2 Lord of the Rings movie, which can be counted out because I believe most of it are CG. So it can be said that Hard Boiled is number 1 in non war or non CG movie. That makes me want to watch it right NOW!
Labels: game, movie
The Happiness of the Katakuris
This is part of the back dated series :P
That's just a cool way to say some stuff I wanted to post but was not able to do it for whatever reason.
OK. Let's talk about this movie called The Happiness of the Katakuris.
The movie begins with a weird nonsensical clay animation about an ugly fairy that starts with the fairy tearing off a woman's uvula and madness continues. And this opening has nothing to do with the movie's storyline.
Sounds weird? Oh yes it is. You know why? Because it's
Takashi Miike's movie. Oh yeah!
This movie is adapted from a Korean movie titled The Quiet Family. But Miike added his own touch into it, which is... musical! This only means that madness is guaranteed.
I think I exaggerated a bit. This is in fact a comedy movie. Surprised? It's about a family opening an inn in secluded area and their guests died in their inn (no pun intended). Ow.. that's bad for business. So they buried them secretly. What will happen then? Just watch it already. I'm sure you will enjoy it.
Eventually, it's a sweet movie about family values, with dancing zombies. Oh ho ho...
My favorite part is the musical of the captain and the family's daughter. So funny, cute, weird, cheesy, indescribable, yet sweet.
Labels: movie
