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All reviews - Movies (6) - TV Shows (4) - DVDs (8) - Music (13) -

Cartoony Fun

Posted : 3 weeks, 2 days ago on 22 April 2008 08:15 (A review of Crazy Safari)

A mash-up of Mr. Vampire and The Gods must be crazy, starring Lam Ching Ying and N!xau. Lot's of misunderstandings, gags and cartoon villainy.

Lam Ching Ying and his employer are transporting an hopping corpse back to China when calamity strikes and the corpse is lost in south Africa where it is adopted by a tribe. Hilarity ensues.

Lam Ching Ying's Daoist priest is a bit more arrogant than normal, and a bit of a jerk, but with a good heart.

Of all the Mr Vampire sequels, this is one of the better, if sillier ones.


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Mythological Treasures

Posted : 3 weeks, 5 days ago on 20 April 2008 06:20 (A review of The Forbidden Kingdom)

I liked it. It really is a fan's movie. In the first five minutes you see pictures of Lau Kar Leung, Lo Lieh, Jimmy Wang Yu, Cheng Pei Pei (not sure if the poster was from COME DRINK WITH ME or GOLDEN SWALLOW), Gordon Liu and others flash past during the beginning credits. Movies mentioned (that I can remember), ENTER THE DRAGON, CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON, BRIDE WITH WHITE HAIR (twice).

There's a training montage that I've heard people complain about,but please, how many Asian movies have I sat through with training sequences. Honestly, no new ground is broken here. If you're a martial arts fan you've seen it all before and probably better. I saw the fate of one of the characters from a mile away, having sat through sufficient Shaw flicks. If you've only seen CTHD or HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, then it's a bigger treat. No one embarrasses themselves. I know it sounds kinda like I'm dissing it, but I'm not. It's a competent and comfortable (if you've watched a good chunk of HK martial arts movies) movie. It's certainly the best HK martial arts movie not made in HK and not directed by a Asian (BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA is more of a wu xia, I think) I've seen.

The look of the movie is fairly comtemporary, like CTHD, HFD, or FEARLESS except for a few scenes that could have come from the Shaw Bros sound stages or ZU (either one).

The Jackie/Jet fight was cool, though I have to echo the wish that they would have done it even 10 years ago.

Oh, and maybe it's a kid movie, but it's not a kiddie movie. I was happy seeing it a full price, so it's at least worth a matinee ticket. It's certainly the best Hollywood movie, Jackie or Jet have been in, in umpteen years.

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Good Movie, Crummy Disc

Posted : 6 months, 2 weeks ago on 30 October 2007 09:51 (A review of Chicken and Duck Talk)

In spite of the burnt in subtitles and mediocre picture quality the story overcomes the disc's shortcomings. It's also a PAL disc, not NTSC (the dvd info on the back cover says NTSC). If you're a Hui brothers fan it's definitely worth watching.

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Fun, cartoony movie

Posted : 1 year ago on 22 April 2007 03:52 (A review of Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar)

Just got through watching ASTERIX AND OBELIX TAKE ON CAESAR (1999), with
Christian Clavier as Asterix and Gerard Depardieu as Obelix. It's a live action adaption of some the Asterix & Obelix comics by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. Yes, it's a comic book movie, just one that few of us have ever heard of.

Without being too spoilerish the plot revolves around the adventures of our two Gauls defending their village from the Romans. From what little of the albums I have read (a couple, years ago), the movie seems to capture their tone and heart quite well. There's violence, but it's all very cartoony and mostly good natured.

Clavier and Depardieu both nail their roles, though Depardieu's over-grown, superhuman, man-child shines brightest. All the comic's characters are given some screen time so you can point at the screen and go "hey, there's so & so"!

I don't know how many live action adaptions of euro-comics there have been (the only ones I can think of off the top of my are BARBARELLA and DANGER: DIABOLIK, both quite good). This has certainly got to be one of the better ones, too.



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Fun euro-comic French movie

Posted : 1 year ago on 22 April 2007 03:50 (A review of Asterix & Obelix Take on Caesar)

Just got through watching ASTERIX AND OBELIX TAKE ON CAESAR (1999), with
Christian Clavier as Asterix and Gerard Depardieu as Obelix. It's a live action adaption of some the Asterix & Obelix comics by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. Yes, it's a comic book movie, just one that few of us have ever heard of.

Without being too spoilerish the plot revolves around the adventures of our two Gauls defending their village from the Romans. From what little of the albums I have read (a couple, years ago), the movie seems to capture their tone and heart quite well. There's violence, but it's all very cartoony and mostly good natured.

Clavier and Depardieu both nail their roles, though Depardieu's over-grown, superhuman, man-child shines brightest. All the comic's characters are given some screen time so you can point at the screen and go "hey, there's so & so"!

I'm not sure why there hasn't been some kind of R1 dvd release; well, there was a Canadian dvd release, but it's out of print and I don't think there were English subs. The movie did well enough theatrically that they made a sequel called ASTERIX AND OBELIX: MISSION CLEOPATRA, that is considered a superior sequel. No one thought it would sell because it's too French or something...

While there is no R1 disc, there are tons of R2 releases. The UK releases is English dub only (*shudder*), the German disc is German dub only, and the other discs include the French audio (5.1 etc...), but no English subs. However, there is a R4 disc (from Madman), that includes the French audio, an English audio track for masochists (okay, useful for small children), and English subs. Most of the review/comparison sites I use don't mention this disc (or the R4 MISSION CLEOPATRA disc); I kinda tripped over them. I think I was poking around for ASTERIX AND THE VIKINGS and these turned up. The disc isn't fancy and the only extra is a trailer (English dubbed), but the movie's widescreen anamorphic and the picture looks great and the French audio track sounds good. If you want to see the movie, with English subs rather than an English dub, this is your only choice.

I don't know how many live action adaptions of euro-comics there have been (the only ones I can think of off the top of my are BARBARELLA and DANGER: DIABOLIK, both quite good). This has certainly got to be one of the better ones, too.

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Nearly flawless Lovecraft adaption

Posted : 1 year ago on 21 April 2007 01:05 (A review of The Call of Cthulhu: The Celebrated Story by H.P. Lovecraft)

Finally, someone has adapted Lovecraft (his short story 'Call of Cthulhu') right. They took the unconventional approach of filming it as a period silent, black and white feature (there is a music soundtrack). The interstitials are in just about any language you can imagine. It works beautifully and is genuinely creepy.

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Be Careful

Posted : 1 year, 1 month ago on 16 April 2007 09:36 (A review of Casino Royale (2-Disc Widescreen Edition))

Sony has slapped some kind of insane drm/copyright protection scheme on these dvds that breaks the discs and makes them unplayable on some players.

You need to think twice before buying any Sony disc, because you might be buying a nice new $25+ coaster.

*******************
Sony is now offering to replace the drm infected/broken discs with drm infected not broken discs.

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Maybe too cryptic for it

Posted : 1 year, 1 month ago on 15 April 2007 09:04 (A review of Serial Experiments: Lain)

There's a lot to like about Lain. It's weird, really weird. You have to pay attention and even then, by the end, you may not be entirely sure just what the hell happened.

A comparison to VIDEODROME would be fair. They're both covering similar territory. It is nice to see anime as ambitious as this, you don't that often. Paranoia Agent comes to mind.

Definitely not for the casual anime fan, but worth it, even if you're left scratching your head by the end.

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Worth getting

Posted : 1 year, 1 month ago on 15 April 2007 08:51 (A review of Scrapped Princess)

** some spoilers **


A really likable mecha sci-fi series masquerading as a fantasy. It does take a little while to warm up to Pacifica, but once you realize where she's come from and her possible fate, you warm up to her.

Interestingly it's similar in some ways to Megazone 23 (I need to re-watch Megazone 23 to see if the similarities are just superficial).

It's pretty melancholy, though not as melancholy as Haibane Renmei. By the end it's obvious that just because you win it doesn't mean everything worked out.

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Practically Perfect Mahou Shoujo

Posted : 1 year, 1 month ago on 15 April 2007 08:39 (A review of Pretear)

If you want to get someone started on the mahou shoujo (magical girl) anime sub-genre, start with Prétear.

At 13 episodes it just the right size for starts (something like Cardcaptor Sakura might scare someone off; 72 episodes is quite an investment). At worst one or two eps might be considered filler, but for the most part the story keeps driving forward because there's no time for dilly dallying.

The characters are all sympathetic including the bad guys, maybe especially the bad guys. Being a fairy tale, the ending is not a cop out.

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