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THE CROSSING Singapore Press ConferencePosted on 04 Dec 2014 |
Genre: Action/Comedy
Director: Jang Cheol-soo
Cast: Kim Soo-Hyun, Park Ki-Woong, Lee Hyun-Woo, Son Hyeon-joo, Park Hye-sook, Kim Seong-gyoon
RunTime: 2 hrs 4 mins
Rating: PG13 (Violence & Some Coarse Language)
Released By: GV
Official Website: http://www.eunwe-movie.kr/index.htm
Opening Day: 18 July 2013
Synopsis: The movie talks about Ryu-hwan as a North Korean top-class agent, infiltrates into the South and assumes the role of a village idiot in a rural town. He observes the townsfolk and waits patiently for his mission. One day, after 2 years of playing the role of the village idiot, fellow elite spies Hae-rang, posed as a rock star and Hae-jin, posed as an ordinary high school student, are dispatched to the same town as Ryu-hwan. He helps the other two spies settle in and teach them how to adjust in the South. They get used to the life in the South alongside the village people, still waiting for the grand mission. With the drastic power shift in the North government, the three spies finally receive the mission, but it’s nothing that they’ve been waiting for. Can they accomplish the mission and go back home as legend?
Movie Review:
North and South Korea certainly shares a long history together, with the Korean War signifying the great split between the political alliance of Republic of Korea (South Korea) and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). Many years after, we are still seeing North and South Korea having a tug of war on their political influence and relationship. Secretly Greatly draws loose references to these ongoing tensions, which certainly resonates with much of the crowd in Korea, and is possibly one of the many reasons why this film managed to break the box-office record in Korea for most ticket sales in its first day of release by a Korean film.
The story is built on the premise of North Korean spies infiltrating the common lives of people in a small South Korean town. The character who was thought to be a village idiot, Dong Gu (played by Kim Soo-Hyun), has been living among them for two years, with a greater mission in mind. Two other young North Korean spies, Hae-Rang (played by Park Ki-Woong) and Hae-Rin (played by Lee Hyun-Woo) later joined him, seemingly preparing for a great revolt. What is remarkable is that these three young actors, average out to be only 23.6 years old of age! They are certainly uprising stars that deserve our attention. Other than Kim Soo-Hyun who was a natural at his role, young actor Lee Hyun-Woo also scored with his role as a young aspiring spy. Lee not only gave depth to his character, but also displayed flair at affecting the audiences with his innocence and hot bloodedness.
One of the greatest highlights of the movie is the action choreography. The action choreography was packed and robust, yet not overdramatic. It was a great compliment to the movie, which aptly expressed the spies’ passion and dedication towards their home country. As the story developed, the fight became their fight for survival. Yet, the excitement does not die, and kept the audiences’ tension high.
For two thirds of the movie, it was really engaging and funny. After all, it is touted to be a comedy/action-thriller. However, being very characteristically Korean, it got a little overly melodramatic towards the end. Unfortunately, this spoiled the overall balance of the movie. The switch was too abrupt, which caused a little disconnection.
The mish mash of genres may not be the smartest idea, but it worked out well for the most of the movie. Although the last 20 minutes or so of the movie may have been a tad messy with the ending may not be the best one would expect, the action choreography coupled with the humour and good acting made this film stand out a lot more from many other Korean films. Overall, Secretly Greatly is arguably a breakthrough in Korean cinema.
Movie Rating:
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(If you went in to the cinema with an impression of it being solely a comedy, you will certainly be jolted off your seat. A must-watch for all Hallyu fans!)
Review by Tho Shu Ling
Genre: Thriller/Drama
Director: Spike Lee
Cast: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley, James Ransone, Michael Imperioli, Rami Malek, Lance Reddick, Max Casella, Samuel L Jackson
RunTime: 1 hr 44 mins
Rating: R21 (Sexual Scenes and Violence)
Released By: GV
Official Website: http://oldboyfilm.tumblr.com/
Opening Day: 28 November 2013
Synopsis: "Oldboy" is a provocative, visceral thriller that follows the story of an advertising executive (Josh Brolin) who is abruptly kidnapped and held hostage for 20 years in solitary confinement. When he is inexplicably released, he embarks on an obsessive mission to discover who orchestrated his bizarre and torturous punishment only to find he is still trapped in a web of conspiracy and torment.
Movie Review:
Spike Lee’s ‘reimagining’ of the Park Chan-Wook cult classic ‘Oldboy’ is a queer creature despite the notable absence of the original’s iconic octopus-slurping scene. Those unfamiliar with Park’s original, which itself was based on a late 1990s Japanese manga, will likely find it bizarre and even off-putting; and yet those who have seen and loved Park’s 2004 Cannes Gran Prix winner are likely to dismiss this as mild and underwhelming compared to the original. But most of all, there is something distinctly Asian in the tale’s themes of revenge and solitude that feel an odd and therefore unsatisfying fit for an Americanised “reinterpretation”.
Yes, to call Lee’s version a remake will be – if you take the filmmaker’s words for it – akin to blasphemy. According to Lee, he and his writer Mark Protosevich had not sought to remake Park’s movie; rather, they have returned to the manga by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi to shape a similar yet somewhat different story that keeps the essential baroque details intact. And so the setup is the same – a cold-blooded businessman is drugged and held captive in a windowless hotel room for 20 years, before being let out in a suitcase in the middle of a field.
The ever dependable character actor Josh Brolin plays the titular character named Joe Doucett, which we are introduced to as a boozy advertising executive who blows a make-or-break deal by propositioning his client’s wife at the very meeting. His sentence for the next two decades while in captivity includes watching a ripped off version of ‘America’s Most Wanted’ where he is held as the prime suspect for his ex-wife’s murder, in between being fed the daily news as well as Chinese dumplings. The question upon his release is not who, but why – as ‘District 9’s’ Sharlto Copley plainly puts to him after revealing himself very early into the movie as Joe’s captor – which forms the core of the mystery behind his unusual circumstance.
Joe is aided in his subsequent quest for punishment and redemption by a bartender friend (The Sopranos’ Michael Imperioli) as well as a kind-hearted social worker (Elizabeth Olsen). He has a timeline too – Copley threatens to kill his daughter in the next 48 hours if he fails to figure out his identity as well as the reason for his imprisonment. Neither should be unfamiliar to those who have seen Park’s version; indeed, despite what Lee and Protosevich claim, they have only sought to vary the details from their predecessor.
So instead of an exercise in dentistry when Joe confronts the caretaker of his prison (Samuel L. Jackson), we are treated to an equally grotesque sequence where he slices bits of skin from off the man’s throat. Instead of gobbling an octopus live and whole, Joe merely stares hard at the animal in a restaurant aquarium. And perhaps most significantly, Joe gets to restage the original film’s iconic extended sequence where his character takes on an entire army of thugs with no more than a claw hammer and pure rage - a three and a half minute scene rehearsed for six weeks which to Lee’s credit, loses none of its predecessor’s visceral thrills.
Notwithstanding the distinct sense of familiarity with the proceedings, there is just something lost in translation. Park’s original was the second and perhaps most famous instalment of his “Vengeance Trilogy” whose exploration of redemption and salvation was firmly set against a unique cultural context; unfortunately, the motivations for Joe’s imprisonment lack that dramatic heft when yanked out of that context, especially since the inherent familial concepts make much more sense within an Asian setting. Lee also does himself little favour by undermining an otherwise grim and thoughtful story with cartoonish elements, most notably Jackson’s garish performance (complete with blonde ponytail we may add) as Joe’s chief jailor turned tormentor.
Thankfully, Brolin anchors the titular role with his compelling presence, built on a single-minded embrace of his character’s vengeance. His transformation from self-pity to determination is a testament to his prowess as an actor, not to mention his dedication by having gained and then lost a lot of weight. Olsen provides a surprisingly warm emotional centre to the movie, especially in portraying the love angle between her character and Joe - which happens to be one of the ancillary additions Protosevich has brought to this adaptation. Copley is similarly excellent as the demented mastermind behind Joe’s depravity, in particular when the two finally confront each other’s demons in the operatic climax.
Yet call it what you may, but Lee’s “reinterpretation” can never quite dissociate itself from Park’s festival cult classic. Not only do the key elements remain similar, Lee also retains the iconic touches of the South Korean original. But beyond the graphic brutality, there is just something too culturally specific about the story’s twists on revenge and redemption that defy a cross-cultural interpretation. It won’t satisfy fans weaned on Park’s version, nor for that matter is it likely to win over new converts with its uneven mix of fantasy and stylised naturalism. They’ll be baffled, they’ll be astonished, but it is unlikely if you are encountering this tale for the first time that you’ll be impressed.
Movie Rating:
(Neither imaginative enough to stand on its own nor inspired enough as a successful remake, Spike Lee’s ‘reintepretation’ of Park Chan-Wook’s cult classic is unlikely to find much of an appreciative audience)
Review by Gabriel Chong
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OUT OF INFERNO Gala Premiere At Shaw Theatres LidoPosted on 01 Oct 2013 |
Genre: Drama/Romance
Director: Eytan Fox
Cast: Ohad Knoller, Lior Ashkenazi, Orly Silbersatz, Oz Zehavi, Ola Schur Selektar
RunTime: 1 hr 35 mins
Rating: R21 (Homosexual Content)
Released By: Festive Films & Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/YossiFilm
Opening Day: 1 August 2013
Synopsis: Returning to the role that won him TFF’s Best Actor award in Eytan Fox's YOSSI & JAGGER in 2003, Ohad Knoller gives another extraordinary performance as Yossi, a gay man living a solitary existence in Tel Aviv. A perennially sad, workaholic doctor, Yossi has his quiet world shaken when a blast from his past returns and jolts his world. Their brief but emotionally charged reunion unnerves Yossi enough to make him spontaneously leave Tel Aviv. It is only then, on the desolate roads of southern Israel, that a chance encounter with a group of lively soldiers ignites Yossi's desire to awaken from his emotional slumber.
Movie Review:
I didn’t watch the first movie that came before Yossi, titled Yossi & Jagger (2002), nor am I thoroughly familiar with the vocabulary of Israeli Cinema and films that deal with homosexuality.
But approaching Yossi with stereotypes or fixed precepts in mind won’t help in any way. Neither is there a need to have watched the first film in order to appreciate this sequel to it.Yossifollows a very authentic and straightforward premise, immersing the audience in an unassuming narrative from the outset.
Cardiologist by profession, Yossi is a lonesome closet gay who nurses a strange sorrow.Actor Ohad Knoller is finely cast as the shy and inhibited character. He plays his part nicely, never reducing his character to a cheap ‘struggling closet gay’ stereotype, yet driving home the intensity of his pain. Knoller’s acting is right-on-the mark, and is quietly evocative in the many scenes that are built around the awkward social situations that Yossi finds himself in on a daily basis. From the sexual innuendoes that the protagonist picks up both at work and in the general public, to the comments made by a colleague who is callously unaware of his sexuality, we get a sense of the stigma that closet homosexuals face in the public eye, and the internal battles that they fight.
Interestingly, Yossi’s melancholia drives instead of drags the film’s rhythm, and the complexity of his persona unravels to humorous effect. The audience is eager for Yossi’s emancipation and emotional release, but even with all these seemingly sentimentally-sticky topics, the film boasts some pretty sharp editing, so you don’t have to worry about the story being too slow or sluggishly didactic.
It’s a fine effort by director Eytan Fox in capturing a genuine, smart script that’s heartfelt yet too-the-point. Despite the story’s surface simplicity, screenwriter Itay Segal doesn’t shy away from fleshing out more complex, thorny and strikingly thought-provoking topics such as the judgement that some homosexuals are subject to even in their assumed cocoon of fellow homosexuals, tearing aside all superficial notions that the gay movement is one big happy family marching to the same beat. The ugly side of humanity it seems, rears its head as it pleases, disregarding the superficial constructs that differentiate us, be it in the relationships we form or the sexual orientation we choose.
My only gripe with the film is the Cinderella-type fantasy that Segal weaves into the story. The saying that opposites attract is exemplified in how the extroverted, chirpy Tom (Oz Zehavi), who is built like a Greek God, is drawn to the brooding and out-of-shape Knoller. His eventual explanation is convincing, but will still raise an eyebrow for many. All in all, if you were staying away from Yossi for its none-too-mainstream topic, rest assured that this film has a lot of simple, life-affirming lessons that are both earnestly touching and thoughtfully presented.
Movie Rating:
(Some very poignant, universal themes about loneliness and being comfortable in one’s own skin make this film a simple and moving portrait of humanity)
Review by Tay Huizhen
Genre: Action/Fantasy
Director: Sergei Bodrov
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore, Ben Barnes, Djimon Hounsou, Alicia Vikander, Antje Traue, Olivia Williams, Kit Harington
RunTime: 1 hr 43 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence And Brief Coarse Language)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: http://www.seventhsonmovie.com/index.html
Opening Day: 31 December 2014
Synopsis: In a time long past, an evil is about to be unleashed that will reignite the war between the forces of the supernatural and humankind once more. Master Gregory (Jeff Bridges), the last of the Falcon Knights, had imprisoned the malevolently powerful witch, Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), many years ago. But now she has escaped and is seeking vengeance. Summoning her followers of every incarnation, Mother Malkin is preparing to unleash her terrible wrath on an unsuspecting world. Only one thing stands in her way: Master Gregory. In a deadly reunion, Gregory comes face to face with the evil he always feared would someday return. He has only until the next full moon to do what usually takes years: train his new apprentice, Tom Ward (Ben Barnes) to fight a dark magic unlike any other. Man's only hope lies in the seventh son of a seventh son.
Movie Review:
Hollywood has of late had a lousy track record of fantasy action epics, and ‘Seventh Son’, which arrives just in time to close off the year, is yet another blemish to add to that list. Delayed nearly a year while its production company Legendary switched studios, this Universal release assembles A-listers Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore with ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ star Ben Barnes for an expensive big-screen adaptation of the first book of Joseph Delaney’s ‘The Wardstone Chronicles’ against tawdry sets and second-rate visual effects.
We aren’t usually that critical of a film’s production design, but there is just something awfully dreary about the widescreen world of Russian director Sergei Bodrov’s debut English-language feature. Indeed, the only human city where any of the action takes place looks like it was rented right after the cast and crew of ‘Game of Thrones’ abandoned it, while the mountain fortress which principal villain Mother Malkin makes her not-so-humble abode seems like it was designed for some 1960s B-grade science-fiction movie. The ugliness of these green-screened sets is even more obvious against the occasional picturesque Canadian backdrops, which cinematographer Newton Thomas Sigel ably captures to evoke a majestic ‘Lord of the Rings’ feel.
Alas the unattractive visuals are just one of the litany of complaints that you are likely to have. What production designer Dante Ferretti fails to accomplish in sets, visual effects designer John Dykstra also fails to make up for in post-production. Whether the oversized orcs or shape-shifting witches (Moore and her fellow consort Djimon Hounsou transform into dragons, while others transform into creatures with reptilian-like tongues or Hindu deity-like arms), the CG effects for what was once intended to be a franchise tentpole are both unimaginatively conceived and poorly executed, even more appalling when viewed in post-conversion 3D or worse on an IMAX screen.
And yet to fault its technical shortcomings seems at least a tad unfair, in particular because the movie’s problems are much more fundamental. For one, despite boasting an impressive team of screenwriters including Matt Greenberg, Charles Leavitt and Steven Knight, there is hardly a story here. Without any context, we start with a younger Jeff Bridges imprisoning the Queen Witch, Mother Malkin (Moore), up in the mountains. The impending dawn of the once-a-century blood moon lends her strength to break out of her metal confines, and in an early sequence, confront her jailor Master Gregory (Bridges) and his not-so-lucky apprentice Billy (Game of Thrones’ Kit Harington). When that reunion ends with Billy dead, Gregory sets out recruiting a new “seventh son of a seventh son”, Thomas (Barnes), who so happens to be suffering from elliptic visions of Gregory and Malkin.
In narrative jargon, Thomas is The Chosen One, the anointed protégé who under the tutelage of Master Gregory will become his very equal and take his place among the elite group of knights who call themselves the Falcon. There is no doubt during the movie, even when his life seems to be in mortal danger, that Thomas will live to see the death of Mother Malkin and perhaps even the light of another sequel. There is also no doubt, despite Gregory’s initial reservations, that Thomas will be ready within the span of just seven days to defeat the evil that Malkin possesses within her goth-like getup. And for that matter, there is no doubt that Thomas will find true love in Alice (Swedish actress Alicia Vikander), a witch whom he rescues from the town mob and who turns out to be the daughter of Malkin’s younger sister.
The plotting is as straight-forward as it gets, and functions no more than to connect the numerous noisy action sequences together. There is also hardly any character to speak of, each one of them leading or supporting mere stock types that you would be familiar with from countless other such fantasy flicks. The latter is also why we feel sorry for Bridges, a fine actor who’s played the grizzled veteran one too many times of late in ‘R.I.P.D.’ and ‘The Giver’ and is here trying not to sound condescending while delivering lame one-liners with a distinct twang. Moore too is an equally fine actress in her own right utterly wasted in a thankless role, and together, what chemistry the pair had in ‘The Big Lebowski’ is sorely missing in their first reunion since.
If the decision to cast two acclaimed actors to lend legitimacy to the project does nothing to help the film, the casting of its younger actors also fails to do it any favours. Barnes tries his best to project fresh-eyed enthusiasm, but the late decision to cast the 31-year-old actor in the role of a 17-year-old – instead of ‘The Hunger Games’’ Sam Claflin is ultimately a misguided one. He also shares too little chemistry with Vikander, who looks appropriately beguiling but is little much else. Barnes and Vikander are also stuck in an awkward romance which is bound to inspire some unintended giggles especially for a sequence where the two supposedly exchange loving glances while lying together in bed.
There is hardly anything fascinating about ‘Seventh Son’, whose title belongs better in a tongue twister than in an expensive and extravagant swords-and-dragons epic. Yes, there is good reason indeed why former studio Warner Bros had dragged its feet in releasing this, and what a relief it must have felt that it need not try to justify why it decided to do so when it already has an entire trilogy in ‘The Hobbit’. No matter that the director is a two-time Academy Award nominee for his Russian films ‘Prisoner of the Mountains’ and ‘Mongol’, his Hollywood foray is an embarrassing misstep that he would no doubt want to be forgotten as soon as possible. He needn’t worry; to spare yourself the agony of sitting through yet another disappointing fantasy wanna-be epic, go find any one of the other sons and just avoid the Seventh.
Movie Rating:
(Not even A-listers like Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore can save this under-developed and under-directed fantasy epic wannabe from its own tedium and mediocrity)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: James Wan
Cast: Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Ron Livingston, Lili Taylor, Joey King, Shanley Caswell, Haley McFarland, Mackenzie Foy, Kyla Deaver, Sterling Jerins
RunTime: 1 hr 52 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Horror)
Released By: Warner Bros
Official Website: http://theconjuring.warnerbros.com/index.html
Opening Day: 8 August 2013
Synopsis: Before there was Amityville, there was Harrisville. Based on a true story, “The Conjuring” tells the horrifying tale of how world-renowned paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren were called upon to help a family terrorized by a dark presence in a secluded farmhouse. Forced to confront a powerful demonic entity, the Warrens find themselves caught in the most terrifying case of their lives.
Movie Review:
How many different ways can a house be haunted? By now, any seasoned horror fan should be familiar with every one of those ways, and indeed if you approach ‘The Conjuring’ looking for novelty, you’re probably going to leave disappointed. Instead, what genre veteran James Wan does is to toss up some of the best elements of haunted house movies, mix them up with some ingredients of demonic possession, and serve them in a classy way that makes the concoction feel familiar yet fresh.
Adopting the visual language of the supernatural horror thrillers from the era in which the supposed true story is set, Wan carefully builds dread and suspense with lingering shots, handsome cinematography and some good old-fashioned storytelling. This is a firmly old-school horror that has less in common with Wan’s gory debut ‘Saw’ than his effectively slow-simmer outing ‘Insidious’, and the restraint that he displays in each and every aspect of the picture pays off tremendously in terms of veracity and respect.
Those are important qualities considering how fervently Wan wants us to believe that his ghost story is rooted in reality. A prologue establishes the real-life paranormal experts Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) - the former a demonologist recognised by the Catholic Church and the latter a clairvoyant - with an earlier case involving a possessed doll named Annabelle, the husband-and-wife pair both equally devout in the Catholic faith, from which they derive the courage and equanimity to study, confront and do battle with the forces of evil. But the main tale is apparently so horrifying that the Warrens have kept it under wraps for many years, the alleged case unfolding in a 150-year-old farmhouse in rural Rhode Island back in the year 1971.
Like how all such stories begin, this one has a happy couple and their five darling daughters moving into the old mansion. The father Roger (Ron Livingston) is the sole breadwinner working as a truck driver and has just scraped enough to purchase at an auction the place they now call home - so if you’re wondering why the family doesn’t just move out once the hauntings start, there’s your answer. Speaking of disturbing events, it doesn’t take long before things go bump in the night - and soon after, even during the day.
First, the family dog refuses to go into the house; shortly after, it is found dead outside. Then there’s the occasional foul odour like rotting flesh in the house. The clocks also stop precisely at 3:07 am every night. The mother Carolyn (Lili Taylor) finds unexplained bruises on her body every morning when she wakes. One of the daughters complains that she is woken by someone tugging at her feet in bed. Another claims to see a boy named Roy in the mirror within an old music box. Little by little, detail by detail, Wan steadily ratchets up the tension, adding some well-timed special effects and a genuinely unsettling score to imbue the film with a distinct sense of foreboding.
Truth be told, nothing in Wan’s bag of tricks hasn’t been done before; but what he lacks in originality, Wan makes up through deft execution and a keen awareness of pace. Particularly effective is his staging of the family game of ‘hide-and-clap’, which not only uses a simple activity to build a sustained level of anxiety and fear, but also works as an effective technique to spread the action throughout every nook and cranny of the house. Striking a fine balance between showing and teasing, Wan keeps his audience on tenterhooks wondering when the next in-your-face scare will jump at you, and it is to his credit that one does not feel cheated when it happens.
The script by horror vets Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes juxtaposes the Perron family’s troubles with that of the Warrens’ own. Deliberately avoiding any over-explanation, there are obvious enough hints that Lorraine hasn’t quite fully recovered from a previous ordeal. They also have a young daughter who is just as vulnerable to the demons they keep locked away in a room within their house filled with the occult stuff from their case files, including the Annabelle doll now kept in a glass case under lock and key. By agreeing to help the Perrons therefore, the Warrens are also risking their own lives.
But Lorraine insists that they are duty bound to assist, and so with a assistant (Shannon Kook) and a skeptical man of the law (John Brotherton), they move in with the Perrons to gather proof for an exorcism to be carried out on the house. This is also the point where Wan channels his inner ‘Exorcism’, unleashing every fright-inducing trope from the playbook of such films - from intense shaking to oath-swearing and even to levitation. Again, though its tricks are borrowed, Wan performs them with skill and craftsmanship, the sheer intensity of the climax so arresting that you’ll probably forgive or forget that you’ve seen it all somewhere before.
Of course, the excellent cast also deserve credit for that. Not often does one get real actors in a horror movie, and Wan’s film shows how that can make a lot of difference. Wilson and Farmiga share a down-to-earth rapport as the married pair of investigators, while Livingston and Taylor are utterly convincing as working-class parents forced to deal with unspeakable circumstances. Yet somehow both female actresses manage to outshine their male counterparts - while Farmiga acutely conveys Lorraine’s sensitivity and fragility, Taylor portrays with crystal clarity the fear, helplessness and determination of a mother figure.
Complementing the onscreen work by the cast is Julie Berghoff’s brilliant production design of a cavernous house with plenty of hidden crawl spaces behind its walls; ditto for John R. Leonetti’s cinematography, which employs slow zooms and extended takes alternately to startlingly effect while prowling around the interior or gliding around the exterior of the house. And of course, it is Wan that brings all these parts together, designing sequence after sequence of nail-biting excitement, this clearly his most accomplished horror movie to date.
Just because it doesn’t reinvent the wheel doesn’t mean it isn’t scary; rather, ‘The Conjuring’ works as an excellent example of horror done right, eschewing contemporary inclinations of gore and violence for classy old-school techniques built on atmosphere and pure filmmaking fundamentals of cast and direction. Lest expectation ultimately leave you disappointed, let us caution you that it isn’t and won’t be some seminal horror movie like ‘The Exorcist’; still, it is one of the most effective horror movies in recent memory and perhaps one of the most realistic in its portrayal of God, the Devil and where Man’s destiny stands.
Movie Rating:
(Eschewing modern inclinations of gore and violence, this classy old-school horror relies on the fundamentals of anxiety, dread and foreboding to deliver an edge-of-your-seat gripping and suspenseful experience)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Drama
Director: John Lee Hancock
Cast: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Jason Schwartzman, Bradley Whitford, Annie Rose Buckley, Ruth Wilson, B.J. Novak, Rachel Griffiths, Kathy Baker
RunTime: 2 hrs 5mins
Rating: PG
Released By: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 27 February 2014
Synopsis: Two-time Academy Award®–winner Emma Thompson and fellow double Oscar®-winner Tom Hanks topline Disney’s “Saving Mr. Banks,” inspired by the extraordinary, untold backstory of how Disney’s classic “Mary Poppins” made it to the screen. When Walt Disney’s daughters begged him to make a movie of their favorite book, P.L. Travers’ “Mary Poppins,” he made them a promise—one that he didn’t realize would take 20 years to keep. In his quest to obtain the rights, Walt comes up against a curmudgeonly, uncompromising writer who has absolutely no intention of letting her beloved magical nanny get mauled by the Hollywood machine. But, as the books stop selling and money grows short, Travers reluctantly agrees to go to Los Angeles to hear Disney’s plans for the adaptation. For those two short weeks in 1961, Walt Disney pulls out all the stops. Armed with imaginative storyboards and chirpy songs from the talented Sherman brothers, Walt launches an all-out onslaught on P.L. Travers, but the prickly author doesn’t budge. He soon begins to watch helplessly as Travers becomes increasingly immovable and the rights begin to move further away from his grasp. It is only when he reaches into his own childhood that Walt discovers the truth about the ghosts that haunt her, and together they set Mary Poppins free to ultimately make one of the most endearing films in cinematic history.
Movie Review:
Based on the true story of how Walt Disney managed to obtain the rights to adapt P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins into a movie, Saving Mr Banks is watchable and entertaining even for those with no background knowledge of Mary Poppins.
At the heart of it, Saving Mr Banks is really a story about a woman, P.L. Travers (played by the ever-reliable Emma Thompson) moving past the stiff and strong persona she’s learnt to adopt as she comes to terms and accepts the reality of painful childhood memories. In the hands of a lesser actor, Travers’ acceptance of the chirpy songs, in the film adaptation of the books that she penned and had great personal emotions invested in, would be made a lot less believable given its somewhat abrupt development.
The fleshing out of Travers’ personality and the reason why the Mary Poppins series is so dear to her is aided by the flashbacks of Travers’ childhood. Here the casting director has done a terrific job of casting Annie Rose Buckley in the role of young Travers. Buckley’s subtle and layered performance, as a young Travers who is forced to mature as the father she idolizes starts to show his very human vulnerabilities and flaws, makes audiences sympathetic to the adult Travers even when she is being difficult and unreasonable.
The scenes of Travers’ childhood and youth, rather than the scenes of the Disney folks’ interactions with her, are the ones that will stay with you. One scene, where the young Travers wades into the waters after her mother who is attempting suicide and manages to pull her mother back from the brink of death with the pleading “Mother, it’s time to go home”, is particularly haunting for it shows a scared child forced to put on a brave front to prevent her world from falling apart. Such scenes make it difficult for one not to feel sympathetic towards Travers.
While the movie provides a developed backstory for Travers and allows the audience to better understand the woman and her motivations, it does so at the expense of the audiences’ understanding of the other characters. Scriptwriter Don DaGradi (played by Bradley Whitford) and music composers Richard and Robert Sherman (played by Jason Schwartzman and B.J. Novak respectively) seem to be placed there solely for the purpose of being a foil to Travers, allowing audiences to see just how terribly disagreeable Travers is.
Travers’ designated driver, Ralph (played by Paul Giamatti), appears to be a token character added to show that the adult Travers is still capable of development emotional attachment to people despite her disagreeable nature. The only one who manages to get away with a filmsy backstory is Walt Disney (played by Tom Hanks who does a commendable job of bringing to life Disney’s folksy mannerisms) and that’s because of his fame (seriously, you must pretty much live under a rock if you have no idea who Walt Disney is).
In the hands of a less able cast, this movie would have become a plodding drama. Thankfully, the casting was well done although it is a pity as to how the director and script fails to fully utilize them.
Movie Rating:
(A fairly entertaining though somewhat formulaic movie; just don’t go in expecting this to be an informative film about the page to screen adaptation of Mary Poppins)
Review by Katrina Tee
Genre: Drama/Romance
Director: Guo Jingming
Cast: Yang Mi, Kuo Tsai Chieh, Kuo Bea Ting, Sie Yi Lin, Kai Ko, Rhydian Vaughan
RunTime: 1 hr 56 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: Encore Films
Official Website:
Opening Day: 15 August 2013
Synopsis: The story occurs in this speedy developing Shanghai city, and describes the lives of these four main female roles, Lix Xiao, Nan Xian, Gu Li and Tang Wan Ru. These four girls have been classmates since young and developed a very deep friendship even they all have various life-value and personal goal. They have spent their school time together in university and started to face various challenges in peaceful life, including the challenges from part-time job and enormous living pressure in life. In this peaceful camp life, there are diverse dilemma for them to make decisions which involves love, friendship, working value and carrier life. Meanwhile, some sweet and bitter relationship has just flourished between them and Gu-Yuan, Gong-Ming, Jian-Xi, and Chong-Guan… While facing a gigantic pressure in life, and love relationship, these four young ladies have encountered huge changes in friendship and love, even family relationship. Facing all these radical changes, how could they still hold on their attitude and value toward life and love? How could they still create colorful pages in their young life?
Movie Review:
No doubt the box-office success of this movie in China is giving it legs to cross into international territory, but we suspect that ‘Tiny Times’ - directed and adapted by novelist Guo Jingming from his series of bestselling books - is unlikely to find an appreciative audience overseas. A portrayal of the lifestyles of the new-rich who have rode on the waves of China’s recent economic boom, it is as shallow and superficial as the lives of the people it aims to portray - and that’s a fact not lost on even some of its Mainland Chinese audiences, who have criticised it for glamourising materialism.
To be sure, that isn’t a problem in itself - after all, Hollywood has also been guilty of dishing out such trivial pleasures, the most well-known examples being ‘Sex and the City’ and ‘Gossip Girl’. But what makes this ‘SATC’ wannabe - that should otherwise be known as ‘Sexless in Shanghai City’ - frustrating is how daft each and every one of its four lead characters are, whether in terms of love or career or simply being responsible friends. Yes, it’s appalling how they take turns to screw up, jump to conclusions or demonstrate their ego, which makes it quite impossible for us to rally around them and their supposed bond of bosom friendship.
But before we launch into that tirade, let’s be clear on one thing. We’ve no issues about this movie being a vehicle of wish-fulfilment for the masses. Indeed, Guo’s tale of Lin Xiao (Mini Yang), Lily (Amber Kuo), Nan Xiang (Bea Hayden) and Tang Wanru’s (Hsieh Yi-lin) search for love and success in cosmopolitan Shanghai probably just about epitomises the dream of every young Chinese male and female adult. Ditto for their lifestyle of high-rise apartments, designer bags, cutting-edge fashion and luxury bags - judge them all you want, but those symbols of status are just what every high-achiever in China is after.
So we’re not here to quibble over the little lapses in logic, even though some audiences are less likely to be as kind. We therefore won’t question how Lin Xiao for instance, despite her clumsy and careless ways, manages to secure a coveted position as assistant to fashion bible M.E. Magazine’s editor-in-chief Gong Ming (Rhydian Vaughan). Neither will we question how Lily manages to be a Chief Financial Officer despite being fresh out of college. Perhaps even more significantly, we won’t even start asking how in the first place the four girls became such inseparable friends, despite the fact that there is little we see which in fact binds them together.
And yet even with such concessions, what transpires is just plain dreadful. Why Gong Ming or his other more senior assistant Kitty would put up with Lin Xiao’s mistakes time and time again escapes us, particularly since the former is said to be exacting and the latter unsympathetic to under-performing employees; but what really takes the cake is why Lin Xiao would accept Gong Ming’s gift of an engagement ring that he says he doesn’t need anymore, which then leads to a huge misunderstanding with her boyfriend Jian Xi (Li Ruimin).
Lily gets the even shorter end of the stick, confronted with a rough patch in her once rock-solid relationship with Gu Yuan (Kai Ko) after the latter’s mother disapproves of her and seeks to marry him off to an even wealthier family. This isn’t even a rich-poor divide; it’s that of the rich-and-richer, so ludicrous and poorly defined that one feels no empathy or anything whatsoever for what becomes of the two of them. And would you believe it, their rift begins when Jian Xi calls Gu Yuan, hears a female picking up the call, and proceeds to tell Lin Xiao and Nan Xiang of Gu’s suspected infidelity - so much for being a responsible friend.
Fortunately for Nan Xiang and Wanru, they are spared much of the inanity by simply being afterthoughts. Aside from the contrived finale, Nan Xiang’s struggling fashion designer hardly gets much screen time other than an ill-conceived but thankfully barely-elaborated subplot involving a former boyfriend Xi Cheng (Jo Jiang). Ditto for stocky badminton player Wanru, whose crush on another well-chiselled player Wei Hai (Calvin Tu) gets all about five minutes of play. Nonetheless, it also means that for most of the time, we have to put up with idiotic characters whom we just want to slap some common sense into.
That’s doubly disappointing if you consider how Guo’s writing experience should in fact make him a good storyteller; instead, we are not only made to endure a first-time director’s poor sense of narrative continuity, but also his half-baked tale of immature characters and their childish whims. And no, the fact that he had cast eye candies Mini Yang, Amber Kuo and Taiwan-born Eurasian model Bea Hayden doesn’t quite make up for it - even though there’s no denying that Yang and Kuo display plenty of sass in their respective roles.
As you can probably tell, this is a movie designed specifically to go easy on the eye. Besides the ladies, the guys have also been chosen from some of the most eligible young actors from the Mainland and Taiwan. It’s not about the fact that it’s fluffy - we do enjoy our guilty pleasures - but it’s about how plain stupid the characters are, trapped in their own little well of incompetence, pettiness and ignorance. Unless you have specifically come to ogle, this is one vacuous romantic fantasy that is as empty as it is tiny and ultimately inconsequential.
Movie Rating:
(Only as good as the ‘eye candy’ of its young cast, this ‘Sex and the City’ wannabe trades four savvy American women for four daft Chinese young adults and ends up being shallow, superficial and terribly frustrating)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Comedy
Director: Ben Falcone
Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Susan Sarandon, Mark Duplass, Kathy Bates, Sandra Oh, Nat Faxon, Dan Aykroyd, Toni Collette, Allison Janney, Gary Cole, Ben Falcone, Mia Rose Frampton, Mark L. Young
RunTime: 1 hr 37 mins
Rating: NC16 (Coarse Language And Sexual References)
Released By: Warner Bros
Official Website: http://tammymovie.warnerbros.com
Opening Day: 3 July 2014
Synopsis: Tammy (McCarthy) is having a bad day. She’s totaled her clunker car, gotten fired from her thankless job at a greasy burger joint, and instead of finding comfort at home, finds her husband getting comfortable with the neighbor in her own house. It’s time to take her boom box and book it. The bad news is she’s broke and without wheels. The worse news is her grandma, Pearl (Sarandon), is her only option—with a car, cash, and an itch to see Niagara Falls. Not exactly the escape Tammy had in mind. But on the road, with Pearl riding shotgun, it may be just what Tammy needs.
Movie Review:
If there was one scene we would never forget from ‘Bridesmaids’, it was that of Melissa McCarthy in an expensive wedding dress hoisting her considerable bulk atop a sink to defecate. From that point on, she has played an iteration of her abrasive, socially awkward misfit persona through the lousy ‘Identity Thief’ with Jason Bateman and thereafter in the far superior ‘The Heat’ next to Sandra Bullock - but it isn’t until ‘Tammy’ that McCarthy gets the chance to go at it by her lonesome, playing THE character which the entire movie is based on.
Yes, in many ways, ‘Tammy’ is McCarthy’s dream project - not only does she get to headline the movie, she also writes and produces the movie next to her husband, Ben Falcone, who incidentally makes his directorial debut as well. And yet, despite the amount of creative freedom that McCarthy has with the material, this road trip comedy hardly gets past second gear, never quite becoming more than a pastiche of sitcomy episodes that fails to add up to any satisfying whole. Even worse, these episodes on their own rarely rouse more than a chuckle, which is especially disappointing considering how she had always been able to make these individual parts stand out on their own.
The fault here lies less with the acting, than with the scripting and the directing. To her credit, McCarthy remains a singularly captivating performer, and even though her aggressive, in-your-face, physically fearless style of comedy is getting a tad too familiar by now, it still is undeniably engaging. She also has amassed a significant ensemble cast to do some heavy lifting - Susan Sarandon is Tammy’s grandma; Dan Aykroyd and Allison Janney play her gruff parents; Toni Colette is the neighbour whom her husband is cheating on with; Gary Cole and Mark Duplass are a father-son duo who have the hots for Tammy’s grandma and Tammy herself; Kathy Bates and Sandra Oh are a wealthy lesbian relation and her partner - and each one of these fine performers make the best out of their supporting parts, no matter how thinly sketched they are.
To say that ‘Tammy’ has one of the finest casts of any comedy in recent memory is not an overstatement; unfortunately the movie squanders that good fortune by giving them so little to do. Besides Sarandon’s broken-down alcoholic grandmother, the rest of the parts are so poorly defined that they might as well be given to first-time actors. That same criticism may very well apply to the titular character, which for a character-driven comedy like this is simply unforgiveable.
How can it be that Tammy has nary a character arc to speak of? We meet her on the start of one of her bad days, where on the way to work at a fast-food joint, hits a deer, comes in late looking dishevelled, gets fired from her job, goes home to catch her husband cheating on her with their neighbour, packs a suitcase to go to her Mom’s place down the road, and ends up with grandma on a trip to Niagara Falls. And then to prove the obnoxious side of her, Tammy crashes a jet ski, holds up a different outlet of her old burger chain wearing a paper bag on her head, and eventually gets thrown in jail for further vehicular destruction. Only a speech by Kathy Bates late into the last third of the movie and her stint in the clink right at the end seems to be the catalyst for Tammy’s change in behaviour, which remains disappointingly one-note from start to finish.
Such flaws are probably impossible to disguise, but Falcone’s inexperience as a director only exacerbates them. Too often, he just lets the joke run way past its punchline, which is even more obvious when the joke isn’t that funny in the first place. The pacing as a result is leaden, shuffling along without the kind of satisfying punch that a comedy should deliver. Tonally, the movie is also all over the place, lurching from the kind of frat-boy silliness we see in Adam Sandler comedies to a sweet gooey sentimentality that frankly seems like it belongs in a different film.
Lovely though it may have been to keep this a husband-and-wife family affair, ‘Tammy’ looks like it could clearly have benefited from a surer pair of outside hands. One wonders how it could have been like if the screenplay were first reworked by some of them ‘Saturday Night Live’ writers and with say ‘Bridesmaids’ director Paul Feig at the helm. As it stands, there is not enough comedy and too much of forced poignancy for this character comedy to ring true. Much as we love McCarthy, this can only be described as a disappointing misfire, and one that we fear will take a lot of audience goodwill to overcome.
Movie Rating:
(Melissa McCarthy’s aggressive, socially awkward shtick is still as funny and she has a great supporting cast, but everything else about the movie is sloppy and inept)
Review by Gabriel Chong
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