Die Harder Harry Porter!!

I killed two movies in a day. None of my family members were interested in watching Die Hard 4.0 I decided to watch the movie on my own since I was lazing on Saturday. At the same time, I planned to take the family out to watch the latest Harry Porter trilogy, Harry Porter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Die Hard 4.0 is where our hero John MaClane (Bruce Willis) saved his country from a criminal plot is in place to take down the entire computer and technological structure that supports the economy of the United States. As in the other Die Hard trilogy, you expect to see car crashes, flying objects (cars, planes and helicopters) and blood. There was no stop action from the start to the end of the movie. However, there are some unconvincing parts where the movie magic did not manage to excite me. There was a scene where the helicopter was chasing and shooting his car where he smash into a fire hydrant. The water from the water hydrant shot up to the helicopter can dislodged the shooter from the helicopter to the ground. How accurate and lucky could such an incident happen??? But I was impressed by our Miss Maggie Q. She plays the part of Mai Linh, the girlfriend of the villain Gabriel. Wow, she is a tough cookie and can really match John MaClane in fights using her kung fu skills. But the best part was she managed to stay on to a SUV where John MaClane drove into her all the way to the elevator shaft!!

At night, took the family to watch Harry Porter and the Order of the Phoenix. Since the movie was just premiered on July 11, getting tickets for the movie would not be easy which is why I decided to buy the tickets early when I went to watch Die Hard 4.

As usual the battle between Harry Porter and Lord Voldemort still has not come to an end. The movie started off with Harry Porter was almost expelled from Hogwarts for using his spell in front of a muggle. This time around we have a "bitch" running Hogwarts. She's Professor Dolores Umbridge who was sent by the Ministry. This time around there was a kissing scene between Harry and Cho Chang. The best part was when Ron and Hermoine asked Harry how was the kiss. Harry replied "It was wet!!!". As in the previous Harry Porter movies, the ending is where we see the good battle with the evil. All hell broke loose where Sirus Black was killed and Professor Dumbledore was the only one who can hold back the attacks of Lord Voldemort. In this movie, we learned about the prophecy that in order for Harry Porter to survive, Lord Voldemort must die or the other way around. So the next offering of the Harry Potter trilogy will give us the anwer on who will die and who will survive. If you cant's wait, go and get the book which should be in the bookstores on 21 July.

Transformer - The Movie

The long awaited Transformer - The Movie premiered on 26 June. Before the movie premiered, my son has requested that I take him to watch the show. But I was on assignment in Manila when it premiered in KL. The moment I landed in KL on Saturday, he made a date with to take him to the movie. The next day we wanted to see the morning show at 11.00 a.m. so we took off to TGV in Cheras Selatan. There was already a long queue lining up to get their tickets. By the time we reached the box office, there were only singles tickets left. We left the place empty handed and disappointed.


To make it up to him, I promised that we will see the movie by the end of the week. So on last Friday (6 July) I managed tickets for the midnight show which starts at 11.30 p.m.. Naturally, being the eve of the weekend, the tickets were selling fast. I managed to secure 6 tickets for the family.

In the end.. wow.. it;s a great movie. The special effects were great and the sound was superb. Now I understand why there were so many people queue up to get a ticket to watch it.

More movies to wacth.. Die Hard 4 the continuing series of the Die Hard series and the new Harry Porter trilogy will premiere on July 11.

Spiderman 3

The long awaited Spiderman 3 premiered in Malaysia on 1 May 2007 just in time for the long holidays. Since I came back from Shanghai, my son has been requesting me to bring him to watch the movie. There have been much publicity over the television on this movie and he could not wait to watch it at the movie theater. To avoid the crowd in getting the tickets, I went to the theater to buy the tickets in advance last Thursday to watch the movie today (2 May).



Off we go to the theater, everyone of the family (including my mother-in-law) to catch the 2.00 p.m. show. Luckily we bought our tickets much earlier because we saw the sign informing that all tickets for the day have been sold out.



The show started on time and this Spiderman trilogy is by far the best as compared to the previous two Spiderman movie series. In the movie, Spiderman not only have to battle against one villain but three different villains Green Goblin, Sandman and Venom. The battle with all the three different villains were physical. This time around Peter Parker have to fight a battle to keep Mary Jane Watson as his girlfriend. There is also a battle within Spiderman himself as he was possessed by a strange substance that came from meteorite.



The movie lasted two and a half hours covering all the fight and battle scenes and also the ups and downs of the love life of Peter Parker.

My verdit... don't miss out this show. The story line and action will keep you awake.

A Satanic Pact with the Ghost Rider

Just like last year, we were also at the cinema just before the reunion dinner to watch Jet Li's "Fearless", my children and I were again at the cinema to watch "Ghost Rider". Looks like it's going to be like a family tradition.

I have known Ghost Rider from Marvel comics when I was younger ( I was a comic collector too). However, I only knew that Ghost Rider is a motorcycle stunt man during the day and at night he becomes the Ghost Rider to fight evil. Well actually, the story is about a young stunt driver named Johnny Barton who sells his soul to the devil and separates from the love of his life. As part of his deal with the devil, Johnny continues to be a stunt driver by day, but at night he becomes the Ghost Rider, a force who hunts demons in the presence of evil.

The effects and the CGI were great making the Ghost Rider character quite convincing. The only complain that I have is the actor. They choose Nicholas Cage to be the Ghost Rider. He looks a bit too old to act as Ghost Rider. I prefer the younger Johnny Barton (I don't know him name) to be the Ghost Rider.

Overall, the show was enjoyed by all of us. I would recommend it just to enjoy yourself over the Chinese New Year holidays.

Cicakman - Watch the trailer here

The Fast And The Furious : Tokyo Drift

Went for a show with my daughter Carrie, The Fast and The Furious : Tokyo Drift. The show was rated 18 SG where only those 18 years old and above could get into the cinema hall. That means my son cannot even join me for the show.. too bad.

Well being a car enthusiast, the show is almost a must see show. I have seen the earlier two Fast and Furious movie series and this one would be a different since they are concentrating on a different art of car driving - DRIFTING.



The movie showed the beautiful cars that are available in Tokyo not to mention the beautiful and scantily dressed girls who were at the car park where the car are raced. The story is about a 18 year old troubled American boy Sean Boswell who sent off to Tokyo by his mother to be with his father (both parents are divorced) from avoiding him going to the slammer after a racing incident with another stuck-up American kid.



It was not long when he landed in trouble again in Tokyo by challenging a Japanese called Takashi nicknamed DK to a underground drift race where Sean himself did not know the meaning and art of car drifting. He smashed up the car he raced and was required to "pay" back for the damaged dome. By the way the nickname DK means DRIFT KING!!!.

The story continued with his involvement in the darker gangster side of the youth in Tokyo and was in the end challenged to a drift race again with DK at the twisty and winding mountains.

What I don't like about the movie was that the ending was raced in an American car body fitted with a Nissan engine.. American Ego.

Overall, the driving action scenes were good (much better than those feature in the move Initial D which is kids stuff compared to this show) and the story line provide a good lesson to the youth.

More Scenes from Fearless

Fearless

On CNY eve, I got back to office for a while and invited my kids to join me. all of them willingly joined me since my wife still have to wrap up some last minutes matters at her office. Furthermore, the kids have not been to my office for some time. But I know they wanted the opportunity to go for last minute shopping at Suria KLCC.

Once I have finish my stuff at my office, off we go to Suria KLCC. As usual, my son was consistently pestering me to bring him to watch "Fearless" which premier on 26 January 2006. That time was about 10.30 am. and the next show was at 11.00 a.m., We bought the tickets. The theatre was rather empty with only the top three rolls being taken. It was obvious that all the city folks especially the Chinese has "balik kampong" for the CNY eve's reunion dinner.

Being such an empty theatre, it was rather cold. But the movie kept us warm.

The movie is about the biography of Hua Yuanjia one of the great martial arts experts of the early 20th century in China. A brief history of Hua is at the end of this posting.

This movie is great. Jet Li really make sure that his last martial arts movie is one that you should not forget. Great fight sequence, lovely scenery and a dash of a touching moment with blind girl which Hua meet when he in the dumps. There was a scene where his real daughter acted with him as the daughter of Hua.

I would recommend not to miss this good movie (in fact I am gearing up to buy the DVD when it comes out), with great fight scenes and also a good story line. To add on, the soundtrack is sang by my current favorite Chinese hip hop singer Jay Chou (I have even bought the DVD collection of his songs from his latest album November Chopin where the soundtrack and video of Fearless was included).

So if you have nothing to do, head on down to the cineplex to watch Fearless, money back guaranteed (not from me but from the producers of the movies).

A short biography of Hua Yuanjia
Foreign audiences might recall having seen Bruce Lee play Huo's apprentice in the 1972 production of Jing Wu Men. Huo hailed from the Tianjin countryside. He founded the Jing Wu Men Marital Arts School. He died on September 14, 1910 at the age of 42, just after he defeated 10 Japanese judokas. Rumor has it that Huo was poisoned in a conspiracy by the Japanese, a tale that was confirmed by Huo Zizheng, his great-grandson, in an interview with International Herald Leader on January 23. The only piece of written documentation on Huo is Biography of Modern Heroes, a novel by Ping Jiang Bu Xiao Sheng written in 1923. Later stories, TV and movie scripts were all based on that novel. The Chin Woo Athletic Association in Shanghai is the only proof of Huo's existence and story. The organization, which now covers many continents with branches in many parts of China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, England, Australia, the United States and Russia and organizes major kungfu and sports events, is nearly 100 years old. It remains faithful to the practice and instruction of my jhong boxing.

Some background information on Fearless
Fearless is a story about Chinese martial arts guru Huo Yuanjia (1869-1910), who founded the Jing Wu Men (Chin Woo) martial arts school in Shanghai. He practiced and taught "mi zong quan," also known as "my jhong," a Shaolin style kungfu based on deception.

To the Chinese, Huo is a national hero because he competed and won many judo and kungfu competitions. His victories were particularly important because they occurred at a time when China was under the heavy influence of foreign powers.

Li explained that the movie is less a story of Huo Yuanjia the man than it is an expression of his spiritual path.

Preparations for the movie started in 2003. It was also incidentally the time that Li discovered that 280,000 people in China commit suicide every year. He hopes the movie encourages those who have lost faith in life to be strong again.
As big a national hero as Huo might be, there are few written records of him or his life. Li admitted that much of the movie's plot is fiction, although settings and time periods are based on fact. "We just want to tell a convincing story in which Huo is portrayed as a human, not a god," Li said.

Li can relate to Huo's story because he, too, has been through his fair share of ups and downs, having worked hard to make his mark in Hollywood and Hong Kong.

"Huo's attitudes towards life, the world and martial arts depicted in the movie are similar to mine," Li said. "He died at the age of 42, and I am 42 now. I've tried to reflect the philosophies of people my age in the movie. And the main message that I hope to convey through the movie is: live your life positively," Li said.

Fearless will be his last movie that has martial arts as its core subject matter. Li said he no longer wants to make movies in this genre because he has said all he has to about martial arts through movies. But he will continue doing action and kungfu movies because, to him, the three are of different genres.

"Action and martial arts stories only use the form of martial arts. Kungfu represents a concept of time. You spend time practicing it, and you learn new skills. Martial arts are an overall concept, which also includes nurturing the soul.

Shot in Shanghai, Fearless was directed by Ronny Yu Yan-Tai, a much sought-after Hong Kong director in Hollywood. Collin Chou, who gained Western popularity for his performance in The Matrix Reloaded, plays Huo's father. Sun Li, a rising Chinese starlet, plays Yue Ci, a fictional blind character who supports Huo when he is down.

Other members of the cast include Japanese actor Nakamura Shidou and mainland actor Dong Yong. The movie's stunt director is the respected Yuen Woo Ping, who has many of Hong Kong's great kungfu epics under his belt.

Unfortunately, fans won't see any of Li in the movie. For the sake of keeping the action-packed pace of the movie, the movie was cut from its original 143 minutes to just 103 minutes, leaving a fight scene with Li and a Thai fighter, and another with Malaysian former Bond Girl, Michelle Yeoh, on the cutting room floor.

Source: China Through a Lens

Movie Marathon

The first day of Hari Raya, another holiday, my son again (I keep use him as an excuse) pestered me to take him to the movies. Today is the first day premier or the Disney Movie "Chicken Little". As usual, the promotion of the movie in the TV he insist that he wanted to see the movie. Then there's another movie which my daughter suggested, Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride".

We landed at Sunway Pyramid because Tanjung Village cinemas are they where they have the exclusive for "Corpse Bride". Guess what, we ended taking both movies in a go. It started with "Chicken Little" at 1.40 p.m. and the next movie "Corpse Bride" at 3.15 p.m. It's actually started at Cineplex No: 4 and then to Cineplex No: 8.

Actually, I want reluctant to see both movies because I don't fancy much about "Chicken Little" where it's just a story about a little chicken. At the movie, the story was a bit lit "Wars of The World" where earth is being attacked by alien when the child of the alien was left back at earth during their"stopover".

I am not a fan of Tim Burton's film because he has a weird way of making movies. Take for example like "The Night Before Christmas", "Edward Scissors Hand" and "Batman 2". I fell asleep during the movie because the story was slow and not much of action. What do you expect when the movie is made using stop motion method. The story is about a writer named Victor who was destined to marry a woman of his parent's choice named Victoria. Victor did not performed well during his wedding vow ceremony and landed at a cemetery where he accidentally married a corpse.