Genre: Drama/Thriller
Director: Stephen Daldry
Cast: Rooney Mara, Martin Sheen, Rickson Tevez, Eduardo Luis, Gabriel Weinstein, Wagner Moura, Selton Mello
RunTime: 1 hr 54 mins
Rating: PG13 (Coarse Language and Some Violence)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: http://www.trashmovie.co.uk/

Opening Day: 1 January 2015

Synopsis:  A contemporary thriller set in the third world, about three boys who scrape a living picking through rubbish mounds. One day they discover a leather bag, whose contents plunge them into a terrifying adventure, pitting their wits against corruption and authority to put right a terrible wrong.

Movie Review:

With a title like Trash, it is hard not to expect things like garbage piles and generic black plastic bags to appear on screen. One might even think, why would anyone watch a film named Trash? After all, Hollywood films can be trashy and a title like Trash does seem like a boding sign. Yet do not be fooled, all you title-judging mother****ers, Trash is absolutely nothing like its namesake.

Directed by Stephen Daldry, Trash is a story about Raphael (Rickson Tev) and his chance discovery of a wallet belonging to José Angelo (Wagner Moura). Together with friends Gador (Eduardo Luis) and Rato (Gabriel Weinstein), Raphael embarks on a perilous journey to uncover the truth behind the wallet, unwittingly becoming victims to corrupted politician Santos and policeman Frederico (Selton Mello).  Adapted from Andy Mulligan’s young adult fiction novel, Trash has a story that seems almost like a fairytale - it is only in the lala-land of literature that fourteen-year-old trash-pickers can succeed in exposing the corrupted ways of political figures without getting themselves killed. That being said, the film succeeds in translating this highly unlikely situation from book to screen without making it seem too contrived.

There are many things to look out for in Trash, like the superb editing and the wonderful cinematography by Adriano Goldman. From the mountains of trash piles to the grimy stilt houses, Goldman did a great job of capturing the decrepit beauty of these common wastelands. Chase scenes in particular, were edited well with great rhythm. Daldry’s use of the boys’ to-camera inserts would also be greatly appreciated by viewers who have read the novel. Seen through the to-camera inserts, the boys’ frank statements better developed their characters, reflected the novel’s multi-perspectives and doubled as a plot device later on in the film.

Although Tev, Luis and Weinstein can be rough around the edges with emotional scenes, their energy was infectious on screen. On the other hand, Rooney Mara and Martin Sheen paled in comparison, appearing more like decorative non-playable characters beside the boys.  While Moura performed within expectation, the same cannot be said of Mello, who played the role of Frederico like an emotionless corpse. In fact, if you stare hard at the screen, you will soon come to the conclusion that even a dead grouper has eyes livelier than Mello’s.

Acting aside, the only problem this reviewer has with Trash is Raphael’s dogged pursuit for justice. When questioned about his actions, Raphael answered that he was doing so because “it is the right thing”. In spite of that, it was the money left behind by José, and not the book accounting for Santos’ corrupted dealings, that seemed to interest the boys. In this sense, the pursuit for justice seems more like an adventure for Raphael and his friends, rather than an act motivated by the decision to right a wrong. Then again, perhaps that was what made Trash so charming. In a world filled with dark, cynical views, the boys are a representation of what hope, perseverance and friendship can bring about.

Movie Rating:

(With beautiful visuals, awesome editing and a great story, Trash is a film that should not be judged by its title)

Review by Leng Mong

Genre: Drama
Director: Susanne Bier
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Rhys Ifans, Toby Jones, Sean Harris, Sam Reid
RunTime: 1 hr 50 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scenes)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: http://www.magpictures.com/serena/

Opening Day: 1 January 2015

Synopsis: The film follows newlyweds George (Cooper) and Serena Pemberton (Lawrence) who travel from Boston to the mountains of North Carolina where they begin to build a timber empire in 1929. Serena soon shows herself to be the equal of any man: overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving a man's life in the wilderness. Together, this king and queen rule their dominion, killing or vanquishing all who stand in the way of their ambitions. But when Serena learns that she can never bear a child, she sets out to murder the son George had before his marriage…

Movie Review:

In between ‘The Silver Linings Playbook’ and ‘American Hustle’, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence teamed on a Depression-era drama for Danish female director Susanne Bier, a film which has curiously taken three years to be released. The reason for that delay is clear once we saw it – though perfectly well-acted by both Cooper and Lawrence, there is little critical or commercial value to a film which lacks narrative momentum and cannot quite escape the trappings of a romantic melodrama.

Yes, in case it isn’t clear, ‘Serena’ is first and foremost a tragic romance. Adapted by Christopher Kyle (‘Alexander’ and ‘K19: The Widowmaker’) from Ron Rash’s 2008 bestselling novel, it tells of the tumultuous marriage of George Pemberton (Cooper), a smug self-made timber baron struggling to keep his company afloat at the cusp of the economic downturn, and Serena Shaw (Lawrence), a headstrong ambitious woman struggling to deal with her tragic teenage past losing her brothers and sisters to a terrible fire. George is taken at first sight by Serena’s femme fatale, and after a brief ride in the countryside, the two are promptly married to each other.

‘Serena’s’ story really begins after their nuptials, beginning with how she takes a more active role in the running of George’s affairs than what was expected of wives then in the late 1920s. Not only does she insist on supervising the loggers personally, she even takes it upon herself to import an eagle for a pet to get rid of the ‘snake’ problem that has bitten many a worker. Her formidable hands-on approach rubs George’s right-hand-man Buchanan (David Dencik) the wrong way, and while the script also hints at a homosexual attraction that he has for George, that possibility is never quite really developed – in turn, Buchanan strikes a deal with the sheriff (Toby Jones) of Waynesville to expose George’s corrupt business practices which he was also complicit to.

Without revealing any spoilers, Serena urges George to take care of business, the first hint of how far she is willing to go to protect her own personal interests. That is also why she regards George’s former flame Rachel (Ana Ularu) with contempt, and while she tolerates Rachel’s presence as well as that of her son whom George fathered illegitimately, that quickly changes when a tragic misfortune midway into the film plunges her into depression and takes its toll on her marriage with George too. There is no happy ending for any character here, not even something bittersweet, but that isn’t the reason why Kyle’s script and/or Bier’s direction left us wanting.

The only way ‘Serena’s’ melodramatic story could have worked was for its audience to be invested in the main couple; alas, Kyle tries – but fails to grasp – a character-driven narrative for George or Serena, so much so that the latter’s misfortune and subsequent descent into mental anguish left us aloof. Kyle’s metaphor of George’s search for an elusive panther up in the mountains also comes across heavy-handed and never quite registers with the same poignancy as he obviously intended to. So is his definition of Rhys Ifans’ taciturn but superstitious Appalachian woodsman named Galloway, whose bond with Serena after an accident in which she saves his life isn’t quite fleshed out. Of course, the fault is also Bier’s, who seems almost tone-deaf to the dramatic beats of the material.

At least for those piqued by the re-teaming of Cooper and Lawrence, the chemistry between the golden screen couple doesn’t disappoint. Lawrence is fiery intense as the titular character, and Cooper is a nice counterbalance underplaying his role with restraint and nuance. There is more depth and texture to their acting than their tragic romance deserves, and one quite wishes a better script and certainly a more suitable director could have made this the gripping character study it was meant to be.

Like we said at the beginning, were it not for Cooper and Lawrence, ‘Serena’ would probably not see the light of day in a cinema. Instead, it rides solely on the coattails of its leading stars’ popularity, and while it certainly isn’t boring, it never gets involving or engaging enough, literally leaving its audience in the cold. Dismiss this as third time unlucky for the couple, and wait for the next David O’ Russell team-up to watch them rekindle their onscreen chemistry.

Movie Rating:

(Not even the chemistry of Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence can save this plodding romantic melodrama from its own boredom)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Horror/Comedy
Director: Issara Nadee
Cast: Ray Macdonald, Ananda Everingham, Shahkrit Yamnarm, Akarat Nimitchai, Pimpawee Kograbin, Nalintip Phoemphattharasakun, Suttasitt Pottasak, Sukhapat Lohwacharin, Atthaphan Phusawat, Petei Hokri, Milan Ketsuwan, Kanyarin Nithinapparath
Runtime: 1 hr 46 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Sexual References & Horror)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 11 December 2014

Synopsis: O.T. Ghost Overtime continues the story from film O.T. in the omnibus 3AM. After being spooked by the ghosts in their office, Karan (Shahkrit Yamnarm) and Tee (Ray Macdonald) have made it out alive, though they now suffered hallucination and paranoia. They can’t use the elevator, and they have to constantly checking if the person standing next to them is actually a human and not a ghost. But still, the two bosses still play ghost-pranks on their employees. This time, they’re joined by a new partner Badin (Ananda Everingham). They tease and spook the staff who stay late in the evening to claim overtime. But things always get spookier late at night in this unusual company. This time, together they will have to rescue the company from a critical condition while experience unexpected events in their own office. Their staff who loves working overtime will be part of this misadventure.

Movie Review:

Gone are the days of ‘Shutter’ and ‘Alone’, when Thai horror was at its peak and inspiring audiences to go into the dark halls of the cinema for a good scare. Indeed, the occasional one that gets a release in the cinemas almost always comes and goes with nary a notice. To be fair, the genre got a slight shot in the arm with the ‘hor-medy’ ‘Pee Mak’ last year, which poked fun at its clichés in a ‘nudge nudge wink wink’ manner without becoming a joke in and of itself. And thanks to the runaway success of ‘Pee Mak’, we get wannabe copycats like ‘Make Me Shudder’ and its sequel ‘Make Me Shudder 2’ as well as this feature-length spinoff from the short of the same name.

Isara Nadee’s short about two ‘horrible bosses’ who come up with the idea to prank their employees who work late in the office just so to claim overtime pay was probably the best thing about the horror omnibus ‘3 A.M.’, and Nadee has here expanded the concept to feature-length. Returning with Nadee are his two leads Karan (Shahkrit Yamnarm) and Tee (Ray Macdonald), who after being out-pranked by real ghosts in their office are now still afraid to ride the elevator by themselves. That hasn’t stopped them from doing exactly what they used to do though, and they are here joined by another like-minded boss Badin (Ananda Everingham). 

The basic premise of Nadee’s conceit lay in figuring out what was real and what was just a prank, but whereas such a simple-minded concept was effective in drawing out the laughs and scares in a half-hour short, stretching it to a 106 minute movie simply drains whatever novelty there was in the first place. To distract his audience however, Nadee substitutes the confines of the office with that of what is supposedly one of the top five haunted hotels in ASEAN, in which the three bosses and their employees are to spend one night in. Because their company is at risk of bankruptcy (and their employees at risk of losing their jobs), everyone goes along to plan for the wedding in the supposedly haunted venue despite some initial reservations. 

Strange things proceed to happen at the said venue, and true to the nature of the short that inspired this movie, there are plenty of flashbacks and twists to reveal just who did what and who did not. A few of these hit the mark, but mostly Nadee’s attempt to mix comedy with horror falls flat. It doesn’t help that he constantly tries to out-smart his audience, unveiling turnabout after turnabout so much so that one begins to doubt if anything that happens within the movie is consequential in the first place. At least ‘Pee Mak’ bothered to ground the humour with tongue-in-cheek sensibilities; here, Nadee simply goes for every available ‘a-ha!’ moment to show that what you thought you knew was in fact just a guise for something else. 

The fact that we do not care about any of the characters makes their predicament even less engaging. Everingham is competent as a lead, but his character is not much different from that of his co-stars Yamnarm and Macdonald. Of the employees whom our three protagonists have no qualms playing jokes on, only the timid lecher among them makes any sort of impression – and that’s because Nadee deliberately uses him to push the audience’s buttons, going for the easy habits that are bound to get someone’s attention, such as masturbating while peeping at his colleagues. And though Akarat Nimitchai and Pimpawee Kograbin are good eye-candy as the couple looking for their wedding venue, their stiff acting does little to enliven the proceedings. 

Though it ostensibly sells itself as a horror comedy, ‘O.T. Ghost Overtime’ isn’t quite as funny or thrilling as it probably intended to be. The pranks aren’t that ingenious, bordering largely on juvenile and pointless, while the scares turn out undermined by the constant reversals that make you question if there is anything to be taken seriously about the entire film at all. There is a fine line between being intelligent and being infantile and this ‘smart-alecky’ movie unfortunates comes off more the latter than the former. 

Movie Rating:

(Not particularly clever or funny or scary as it wants to be, this feature-length spinoff of the ‘3 A.M.’ short is yet another disappointing Thai horror)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Biography/Drama/History
Director: Mike Leigh
Cast: Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville, Tom Wlaschiha, Sinead Matthews, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Richard Bremmer, Joshua McGuire, Robert Portal
RunTime: 2 hrs 30 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: http://sonyclassics.com/mrturner/

Opening Day: 8 January 2015

Synopsis: MR. TURNER explores the last quarter century of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851). Profoundly affected by the death of his father, loved by a housekeeper he takes for granted and occasionally exploits sexually, he forms a close relationship with a seaside landlady with whom he eventually lives incognito in Chelsea, where he dies. Throughout this, he travels, paints, stays with the country aristocracy, visits brothels, is a popular if anarchic member of the Royal Academy of Arts, has himself strapped to the mast of a ship so that he can paint a snowstorm, and is both celebrated and reviled by the public and by royalty. …

Movie Review:

We must confess that our artistic inclinations before learning of this movie didn’t take us as far as the late British painter J.M.W. Turner, whose landscape paintings we’ve since discovered were acclaimed for their painstaking perfectionism. You’ll excuse us therefore if our knowledge of Mr Turner doesn’t go very much further beyond what writer-director Mike Leigh has depicted here or from what one can easily Google over the Internet; and yet while it may be tempting for cynics to associate a portrait of a painter with the metaphor of watching paint dry, we found ourselves quite entranced by Leigh’s measured and elegiac composition of the last quarter century of Turner’s life, a period when observers would say that he grew increasingly eccentric and controversial.

One of the surest signs of that is from the way he speaks. As rather unexpected of a member of the Royal Academy of Arts – which he joined at a then unprecedented age of 14 – Timothy Spall portrays Mr Turner as a laconic person who grunts, groans, spits and sputters in monosyllables than hold an actual conversation with anyone. When he sees his father after returning from a painting sojourn in the Netherlands, they growl and hug like a couple of bears – but it probably isn’t surprising that William (Paul Jesson) is his closest family member, whose relationship resembles more of a caretaker or personal assistant, a doting parent who indulges his son’s idiosyncrasies in order that the latter may be free to focus on his artistic pursuits.

Unlike many biopics which struggle to find defining points in their subject’s life and string a coherent narrative around them, Leigh is content to let his drama be loosely structured and freely flowing, and that means by the end of it, you’ll feel not only that you have seen the world as Turner did but also lived in that same universe. But boy what a contradictory world it is! Turner’s selfish and rather unbecoming manners are evident in the way he treats his timid housekeeper Hannah (Dorothy Atkinson), whom he uses as an absent-minded tool for his sexual urges, as well as his angry estranged mistress (Ruth Sheen), with whom he has two daughters and a grandchild that he refuses to regard as anything more than the occasional annoyance when they come knocking.

Leigh contrasts Turner’s brutish personality with his single-minded devotion to his art. His technique may test the patience of some viewers but Leigh insists on depicting Turner doing what all artists do in languorous fashion. And so, we see many scenes of Turner travelling around Europe often on foot searching for his subjects, closely observing light and weather, looking, pondering and making rapid sketches – but those who are more intimately associated with Turner’s artwork will certainly appreciate the real-life references to his celebrated paintings such as “Rain, Steam, and Speed — The Great Western Railway” and “The Fighting Temeraire”. Yet Leigh refuses to play up the more dramatic aspects of his life, so we don’t get clichéd shots of Turner painting feverishly nor for that matter more than a fleeting glance at Turner being strapped to the mast of a ship on his request to experience a massive thunderstorm.

Yet while it may unfold at a languid pace, there is more to Leigh’s film than just a series of vignettes from Turner’s life. It does take some contemplation, but Leigh makes the unmistakable point that his talents and shortcomings are inextricably linked together. Within his own Royal Academy of Arts fraternity, Turner provokes a kerfuffle by doing something with a dab of red paint that enrages his fellow member John Constable. His pragmatism is also shown in sharp contrast with the bitterness of his counterpart Benjamin Haydon (Martin Savage), and Turner shows himself to be a person very much in touch with reality, even to the point of inviting the naturalist Mary Somerville (Lesley Manville) to his studio to demonstrate how violet light alone can magnetise a needle.  

By the end of his life however, Leigh illustrates how the tide had turned ever so slightly for the artist. As he aged, Turner’s paintings became more and more abstract, which a young Queen Victoria pronounced “vile” on her visit to the Academy. He stands helplessly as he watches his works lampooned at a music-hall revue. But most significantly, Turner shows a softer, more humane side of himself as he develops a close poignant relationship with a widow (Marion Bailey) at whose inn in Margate, Chelsea, he finds himself putting up at more and more during his final years; the seaside town is also the place where he had once visited as a lad and where he surprisingly seems to find a happiness we do not see elsewhere. Those who know Turner’s life history will also recall that it is in this Mrs Booth’s inn where he will pass, where he is also rumoured to have uttered his last words “the sun is God”.

And through a sprawling two-and-a-half hours, Timothy Spall inhabits the titular character through and through. There is no mystery why Spall was honoured Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for this role; for two years, the man spent preparing for it, including learning how to paint. His is a layered and multi-faceted depiction of a man complex, curmudgeon and capricious, and Spall is simply enthralling to watch. Complimenting Spall’s amazing performance is Dick Pope’s cinematography, working for the first time in digital to evoke the subject’s yellow-tinged landscape images in every single frame of the movie – and we would go as far as to say that Pope’s gorgeous visuals approaches Turner’s own artistry.

We won’t deny that ‘Mr Turner’ isn’t conventional viewing; certainly, Leigh’s choice of subject matter would most immediately appeal to a more literally-minded audience, even more so by his artistic choice to eschew the template of a conventional narrative. It is deliberately paced all right, unfolding no more (or less) dramatically than how its subject itself would have moved through the day-to-day of his life or savoured the beauty of nature. In one word, it is – as what most have used to describe Turner’s own artworks – sublime, but therein lies the beauty of this biopic. 

Movie Rating:

(Elegant and lyrical, this beautifully photographed portrait of the late British painter is anchored by a stunning performance by Timothy Spall)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Thriller/Drama
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Cast: Jude Law, Scoot McNairy, Tobias Menzies, Ben Mendelsohn, Jodie Whittaker, Grigoriy Dobrygin, Michael Smiley, Karl Davies
RunTime: 1 hr 55 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Coarse Language and Some Violence)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 12 February 2015

Synopsis: Black Sea centers on a rogue submarine captain (Jude Law) who, after being laid off from a salvage company, pulls together a misfit crew to go after a sunken treasure rumored to be lost in the depths of the Black Sea. As greed and desperation take control on board their claustrophobic vessel, the increasing uncertainty of the mission causes the men to turn on each other to fight for their own survival.

Movie Review:

‘Black Sea’ takes the old-school pressure-cooking submarine thriller and gives it a modern-day twist. Headlined by Jude Law’s superannuated captain Robinson, it sees the marine salvage skipper and British navy veteran lead a ragtag team to retrieve sunken Nazi gold believed to be lost on the floor of the titular seabed. War isn’t the backdrop here; instead, the claustrophobic thriller in the tradition of ‘Das Boot’, ‘Crimson Tide’ and ‘U-571’ riffs on the current state of the global economy and its concomitant casualties like Robinson, who in the opening scene, has just been fired by his employer for the past decade. 

Over pints at a pub, Robinson is approached by a friend about the Nazi U-boat laden with treasure; and when a mysterious wealthy backer offers to split 60 percent of the rumoured $40 million booty among him and his crew, Robinson sees it as an opportunity to redeem himself. With his contacts, Robinson quickly puts together a team of Brits and Russians and sets off for the sea floor off the coast of Georgia, albeit in a creaky Russian sub that looks like it was left over from the Cold War. Despite being dangerously near the Russian naval fleet, it isn’t a battle of sub versus sub that writer Dennis Kelly and director Kevin MacDonald rely on to work up the tension.

Instead, Kelly sets up a gradually accelerating chain of events – or decelerating to be more precise, seeing as how it only gets from bad to worse. Mistrust and greed are the seeds to this tragedy, led by Ben Mendelsohn’s terrifying psycho Fraser, who brings the altercation between the men of two different nationalities to boil by stabbing one of Russians, and in turn triggering an explosion in the engine room which paralyses the entire sub to the ocean floor. There, the sharply written script fashions a race against time to get off the depths of the sea before the oxygen (and power) in the sub runs out in the next 36 hours – but only if the men can put aside their respective differences and work together as the nine-man crew Robinson needs to put the sub in order.

Wisely, MacDonald chooses to focus on the more intimate character moments throughout the film, understanding that the lives and deaths of these men – no matter how much they dislike it – depend on each other. Besides Fraser, MacDonald emphasises the wide-eyed greenhorn Tobin (Bobby Schofield), a soon-to-be-father who is constantly ridiculed by the rest for his inexperience and who Robinson is sympathetic to for the same reason, as well as the financier’s American representative Daniels (Scoot McNairy), the only one among the team of misfits who knows ultimately what fate awaits them at the end of their hazardous undertaking. Not all the other players get as much detail as we’d have liked, in particular that played by character actors Michael Smiley, David Threlfall and Grigoriy Dobrygin.

Amidst the ensemble, Law’s character is the only one given a backstory. Through flashbacks, we learn of how he had given his life to the sea and destroyed his marriage in the process, so much so that his wife had deserted him and taken his son with her. It is also because of his history that he feels a certain paternal instinct over Tobin, if not as the son he never knew then as a father he wished he had been. In turn, Law gives a fine nuanced performance as the grizzled sea-man, especially as he becomes increasingly consumed by greed than the wellbeing of his men.

It may not be anything groundbreaking, but ‘Black Sea’ is a solid genre offering that possesses enough high-stakes drama to keep you engaged. Admittedly, Kelly’s screenplay does spring a couple of leaks towards the latter half of the movie, but MacDonald guides the proceedings with a sure and assured hand throughout, emphasising the claustrophobia and distrust among the crewmen while delivering some genuinely gripping action sequences. Like we said, it may not be set against the backdrop of war, but there is enough lingering tension between the Brits and the Russians on board the same submarine to make you wonder if the Cold War never ended. COmING SOON

Movie Rating:

(A satisfyingly thrilling submarine movie that gives the old-school genre a modern-day twist while losing none of the tension nor excitement you expect from such movies)

Review by Gabriel Chong

SYNOPSIS: After losing her job and learning her husband has been unfaithful, Tammy hits the road with her profane, hard-drinking grandmother on the trip of a lifetime.

MOVIE REVIEW:

Comedienne Melissa McCarthy continues her movie career starring as yet another obnoxious character after Identity Thief and The Heat. The only difference this time is that she also co-wrote this effort which marks the directorial debut of her husband, Ben Falcone.

Tammy strictly speaking is an improvisational piece right from the start. There’s hardly a story or a structure in the first place and Falcone seems content letting his wife wisecracking whatever comes to her mind. In an ensemble movie liked Bridesmaids, McCarthy is a joy to watch because she is basically the movie’s comic relief. With Tammy, McCarthy needs to be both the comic relief and also the lead character to move the story forward.

Unfortunately, McCarthy failed miserably in both tasks.

The character of Tammy in general is unpleasant, slightly dimwitted and mostly unpredictable. Out of job and without a husband, Tammy decides to go on a road trip with her alcoholic grandmother, Pearl (Susan Sarandon) to visit Niagara Falls. The gags are built around Tammy liked for no apparent reason crashing a jetski and robbing a fast food outlet subsequently. It hardly calls for a laugh when a person with minimal IQ (I assumed) gets into so much trouble. It’s simply too mean to classify these as a joke. This person needs immediate medical help!

Luckily, we have Susan Sarandon and Kathy Bates to prevent the entire movie from drowning into the abyss. Sarandon is a hoot as the crude elderly woman and Bates is just as good as her lesbian friend. We don’t even know why talented people liked Toni Collette, Mark Duplass and Dan Aykroyd are wasting their time here playing minor, forgettable characters but we heard Hollywood’s paychecks and catering is top-notch.

Sure, there are some meaningful lessons to be learnt in Tammy but it’s all buried under lame sex jokes, f-bombs and uninspiring sight gags. Melissa McCarthy no doubt is a talented actress however she needs to get herself a better script next time. 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The three minutes Gag Reel is actually funnier than the movie

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Tammy on DVD doesn’t come with eye-popping visuals but at least it’s contrast and detailing is good enough. Dialogue is clean in the audio department though the overall soundfield hardly makes a dent in your home theater setup.  

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee

Genre: Drama
Director: Gu Changwei
Cast: Angelababy, Chen He, Tong Dawei, Wang Baoqiang, Jiang Wu, Wen Zhang
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw 
Official Website:

Opening Day: 25 December 2014

Synopsis: An artistic young man with dreams of becoming a film director, GU (Chen He), meets a beautiful, young model, XIAOXI (Angelababy), over his mobile messaging app. His good friend, A-GUA, also meets a new girlfriend on the mobile app who aspires to become an actress. Everything seems perfectly fine until… When A-Gua introduces Gu to a powerful movie investor, they begin to experience the dramatic impact that chance encounters have on their lives. The investor’s creative demands over the film spark a dispute between A-Gua and Gu, and allows A-Gua’s opportunistic girlfriend to leave him for the cinematographer, becoming the new lead actress. This is just the beginning of the chain of events set in motion by the subtle influences of the people around them. LOVE ON THE CLOUD explores life and love in modern Beijing where for better or for worse, this age of mobile connectivity only magnifies life’s unexpected encounters and surprise.

Movie Review:

Under the guise of a “searing look inside love in modern Beijing’, Gu Changwei has fashioned a satire on the moviemaking industry in China. Indeed, while it may be sold as a love story set in an age of mobile connectivity, ‘Love on the Cloud’ is really about how the industry is increasingly driven – at the expense of artistic integrity and some would say, merit – by investors to turn over the kind of profit that runaway hits like ‘Lost in Thailand’ or ‘Let the Bullets Fly’ did for theirs.

And so, Gu finds his voice in the lead protagonist Sha Guo (Chen He), an aspiring screenwriter whose latest screenplay is the lyrically titled ‘Lone Wolf in the Wilderness’. In the opening scene, Sha Guo has just met with a wealthy investor named Mrs Ma, who begins by expressing interest to invest $8 million into turning the script into a feature film on one condition – she owns a cattle farm in Inner Mongolia and wishes for a change in scenery so that the film would be set against that backdrop. Overcome with elation that anyone would even bother with their independent film, Sha Guo and his two buddies – one an actor named Xiao Gua (Zhang Luyi) and the other a cinematographer named Chen Xi, who form the appropriately named ‘Three Dreamers’ – rent a small one-room apartment in a well-known artists’ enclave and begin writing the film that their investor wants to see. 

If only it were that straightforward – with every script change to accommodate their principal investor Mrs Ma’s request comes yet another order to amend or incorporate something else into the script, so much so that at one point what started out as a romance turns into a horror thriller, much to Sha Guo’s chagrin of course. Yet every revision is reinforced somewhat by the promise of a bigger investment, until of course it gets so huge that Sha Guo and his buddies are bought out of the entire film altogether by a consortium of investors that Mrs Ma had assembled. Yes, this is as much satire as it is a cautionary tale for wannabe filmmakers in China – and it says enough that neither Gu nor his friends are eventually credited with the final product, which of course bears little to no resemblance with how the project had started. 

Unfortunately, Gu seems faced with a similar dilemma as his protagonist. You see, a film based on just this single cry from the artistic community may be enough to attract like-minded professionals, but it certainly won’t sell a movie. So instead his scriptwriter Gu Wei has wrapped their critique of the commercialisation of moviemaking around a love story between Sha Guo and a beautiful young model Xiaoxi (Angelababy) whom he first meets on WeChat, their meet-cute happening over a Chinese Shar-Pei dog left by Xiaoxi’s ex-boyfriend which she asks Sha Guo (whose WeChat nickname happens to be that dog breed) to take care of while she goes away for an photoshoot assignment. 

Because of the nature of Xiaoxi’s work, much of their romance is played out over WeChat text and audio messages, which as customary to a youth-oriented film like this, appears as super-impositions on the screen, complete with plenty of cutesy emoticons. Like we said, Gu needed to find a hook to draw his audience in, and quite possibly due to commercial pressures, has inserted a half-hearted love story which really doesn’t go anywhere. Not even Angelababy’s vivacious performance nor Chen He’s more subdued complement manages to convince that their attraction goes beyond the former’s ‘Shar Pi’ or their mutual exchange of words and recordings. 

And in his fourth directorial outing, renowned cinematographer Gu opts for a complete change in tone and pace from his previous three serious-minded dramas. With sped-up frames and rapid-fire editing, Gu aims for a madcap style of comedy that is clearly meant to be over-the-top; nonetheless, his scripting can’t quite catch up by the half-hour mark, so much so that what energy he tries to build at the start quickly fizzles out as the antics get increasingly repetitive and come off ingratiating. Gu also fails to tread the fine line between satire and caricature, and unfortunately most of the characters – and his scenarios – come off the latter than the former. 

In a case of life imitating art, Gu’s own film seems to be a victim of the very same pressures that he has tried to portray. What is really intended as a parody of how artists have lost their integrity at the whims and fancies of their commercial investors has been packaged by way of a modern-day romance set in the age of mobile devices and WeChats, which in the process has dulled its satirical wit with broad slapstick that not even cameos by real-life stars Jiang Wu, Wang Baoqiang and Zhang Wen can redeem. No matter that it decides to take a self-serious turn towards the end, by that point not even a personal tragedy can get this farce’s own head out of the clouds. 

Movie Rating:

(Neither a witty satire on the commercialisation of moviemaking nor a lively rom-com, this half-hearted film is, as its title suggests, pure fluff)

Review by Gabriel Chong

SYNOPSIS: It is 2026 and humanity has been pushed to near extinction by a deadly virus. When a group of survivors desperate to find a new source of power travels into the woods near San Francisco, they discover a highly evolved community of intelligent apes led by Caesar. The two species form a fragile peace agreement but dissention grows and the groups find themselves hurting toward an all-out war.

MOVIE REVIEW:

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes undeniable is my favourite live-action movie of 2014. Combining classy storytelling and convincing visual effects, it’s an amazing follow-up to Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

It’s the year 2026. The population of mankind has dwindled after a devastating virus outbreak. Led by Caesar (Andy Serkins in a motion-captured performance), the genetically evolved apes in the meantime has setup home in the rainforest. But peace is once again tested as the remaining human survivors are fast running out of power. The only solution is for the humans are to go deep into the forest to restart a hydroelectric dam, an area that is dominated by the apes.   

While Caesar empathies with the humans’ plight, his right-hand ape Koba (Toby Kebbell) however feels his leader is siding with humans instead of their own kind. Taking matters into his own hands, Koba inevitably unleashed a war between humans and apes in which the last chance for peace is ultimately shattered.

The emotionally engaging relationship between Caesar and his human father figure scientist Will is what makes the first movie clicked. Not forgetting Will’s Alzheimer stricken father played by John Lithgow. The humans this time round are more geared towards stock characters. With little backstory, characters such as the main hero Malcolm (Jason Clarke), his wife Ellie (Keri Russell), son Alexander (Kodi-Smith-McPhee) and the leader of the human survivors Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) ended up largely under-developed.

Yet the entire story managed to stay afloat and remained incredibly engaging for a whole two hours. Director Matt Reeves and his story writing team crafted a soulful portrayal of Caesar and with much attention focused on the apes’ community, the audience is able to see things more clearly from the apes’ perspective. Instead of mere special effects and guns-toting apes on horses, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes at its core is a character driven, emotionally satisfying summer blockbuster.

The movie is also admirable for it’s display of social commentary, which is relevant to our aspects of our daily lives. Clearly, the filmmakers have done a fantastic job balancing mainstream cinema with smart storytelling. Kudos to Andy Serkis and his team of motion-captured performance actors for their incredible work while dressed in embarrassingly tight gray bodysuits. 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Andy Serkis: Rediscovering Caesar is a nine minutes feature that has Serkis talking about performance capture and how his role as Caesar has grown since the first. The other features are Gallery, Theatrical Trailersand Sneak Peek of Exodus: Gods and Kings.

AUDIO/VISUAL:

The visual presentation on the whole is fine and detailed despite a couple of dark shadowy scenes. Audio quality is dynamic and feature very well-placed ambient effects especially scenes which feature the drizzling rainforest. 

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee

SYNOPSIS: From Marvel, the studio that brought you the global blockbuster franchises of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Avengers, comes a new team—the Guardians of the Galaxy. The Marvel Cinematic Universe expands into the cosmos when brash space adventurer Peter Quill steals a coveted orb and becomes the object of a relentless bounty hunt. To evade his enemies, Quill forges an uneasy truce with Rocket, a gun-toting racoon; Groot, a tree-like humanoid; the deadly assassin Gamora and the revenge-driven Drax. But when Quill discovers the true power of the orb, he must rally his ragtag band of misfits for a desperate battle that will decide the fate of the galaxy. 

MOVIE REVIEW:

From a nobody to a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood, this turn of events probably qualified as a cinematic milestone. No, I’m not talking about Guardians of the Galaxy but the studio behind it, Marvel.

For the last few years, Marvel has been churning out hits after hits and their Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is fast becoming a reality because of it. It’s unbelievable that even a bunch of unknown ragtag heroes can be so much fun and ended up being a box-office hit!

Originally published in the 60’s and unknown to most mortals except a few comic book geeks, the movie Guardians of the Galaxy has been repackaged and written by director James Gunn with the approval of Marvel’s top honchos for the contemporary audience. It’s an exhilarating ride filled with laughs, space battles and colourful villains. Most importantly, Marvel is not afraid of laughing at themselves or taking it too seriously (here’s looking at you..Man of Steel).

A group of unlikely heroes, Peter Quill aka Star Lord (Chris Pratt), deadly assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a revenge seeking Drax (Dave Bautista), a guns-toting talking raccoon named Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and a tree-like humanoid Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) teamed up to protect the Nova Empire against an evil villain Ronan (Lee Pace). But Marvel being Marvel, things are not so easy on the surface. Thanos (voiced by Josh Brolin) last seen in the post-credits of Avengers and The Collector (Benicio del Toro) last seen in Thors 2 returned to spice up things a little together with a subplot regarding a powerful orb. Not that it need a stone to keep audience mesmerized anyway.

Gunn jam-packed the two hours movie with spectacular effects, thrilling aerial battles and lots and lots of surprises. There’s hardly any lull and the frequently hilarious dialogue is a godsend. Marvel movies may not be blessed with the best memorable score but Guardians of the Galaxy has an awesome groovy soundtrack featuring hits from the 70’s and 80’s so we can overlook the former.

Definitely the surprise hit of 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy only proved Marvel can do no wrong at this point. Chris Pratt is on the way to the cosmos and being an A-lister while Disney is laughing all the way to the bank. Not a bad choice for buying a comic book company turned moviemaker.  

SPECIAL FEATURES:

A superbly brief two minutes of behind-the-scenes look in Exclusive Look at Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Rocket’s fake laugh sequence gets extended in Deleted Scene. 

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Boasting terrific visual and audio, this is one title to showcase your home theater setup. Visual presentation is flawless and the sound mix is dynamic and solid at every explosive turn and aerial scene. 

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee

Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Tsui Hark
Cast: Zhang Hanyu, Tony Leung Ka-Fai, Lin Gengxin, Han Geng, Yu Nan, Tong Liya, Tse Miu, Li Bing Yuan
RunTime: 2 hrs 20 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Violence)
Released By: Clover Films
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 8 January 2015

Synopsis: Adapted from the famous Chinese novel "Tracks in the Snowy Forest" set during the civil war era of 1946, when ruthless bandits occupied Northeastern China and threatened the lives of civilians there. The most powerful bandit of all was Mountain Eagle (Tony LEUNG Ka-fai), with an impenetrable fortress up in Tiger Mountain and armed with strong artillery. Unit 203 of the Liberation Army, led by SHAO (LIN Gengxin), was crossing the Northeastern region when they encountered Eagle's men raiding a village. SHAO decided to stay and fight against Eagle. Headquarters sent a skilled investigator YANG (ZHANG Hanyu), who infiltrated Eagle's gang as an undercover. The duo was soon engaged in a battle of wits with the cold-blooded Eagle, deep inside the snowy forest.

Movie Review:

Like John Woo’s ‘The Crossing’, Tsui Hark’s ‘The Taking of Tiger Mountain’ is set during the Civil War in the late 1940s; but instead of depicting the struggle between the People’s Liberation Army and the Nationalists, Tsui and his four other screenwriters pit a certain Unit 203 of the PLA against a band of ruthless bandits whose stronghold is located high up in the snowy Tiger Mountain. Key to the PLA’s strategy was a certain Yang Zirong, who infiltrated the bandits’ stronghold and provided vital information which enabled his unit to triumph guerrilla-style against their more numerous and more well-equipped enemies.

No matter that he has been made to look like Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, Zhang Hanyu commands every single moment he is on screen as Zirong with a compelling performance of nuance and gravitas. While Lin Gengxin plays the righteous leader of Unit 203 Shao Jianbo with conviction and Tony Leung Kar-Fai is suitably hammy as the bandits’ leader Lord Hawk, it is Zhang who truly owns the entire film, and it is no coincidence that his character is the most fully formed one of a movie which sometimes struggles to find the right balance of tone between fiction and history.

That is perhaps inevitable given the slightly uneasy fit between material and filmmaker. Much as Tsui Hark is no stranger to epics, he isn’t exactly the sort of filmmaker who tells a straightforward historical tale – even his arguably most popular ‘Once Upon A Time in China’ trilogy about the legendary folk hero Wong Fei Hung was embellished with his penchant for the theatrical. And so it is with his latest, which depicts the heroism of the 203 Unit with the sort of self-serious posture which historical accounts typically adopt but the loutishness of the bandits with the sort of eccentricity that made his fantasy epics such as ‘The Legend of Zu’ and the more recent ‘Detective Dee’ enjoyable flights of fancy.

Amidst the tonal shifts between the PLA soldiers at the foot of the mountain and the Mountain Eagle bandits at the top of it, Zhang more than holds his own as Tsui’s protagonist, an enigmatic stranger who joins the 203 with the medical officer Bai Ru (Tong Liya) and is at first met with doubt and scepticism by Jianbo. It is Zirong who comes up with the plan for him to go undercover by bringing to Lord Hawk a much coveted map with the locations of treasure left by the fleeing Japanese at the end of the Sino-Japanese war, and also to his quick-witted credit that he manages to win the trust of Lord Hawk to be sworn in as one of the league of brothers.

It is a shaky one though – not only is he tested from within by his Second Brother (Yu Xing) who stages a mock invasion by the PLA and Lord Hawk’s woman Qinglian (Yu Nan) who is under orders to try to seduce him, Zirong’s identity is also threatened when a spy planted by the bandits within the villagers escapes after a failed attack by the former on the PLA soldiers protecting the latter. Such moments of genuine tension are perfectly positioned to keep the narrative taut, which largely unfolds as a buildup to the storming of the bandits’ fortress on the eve of New Year’s Eve on the occasion of Lord Hawk’s birthday.

Quite unlike the typical Tsui Hark movie therefore, this one has clearly fewer setpieces; indeed, we count just three – the first encounter between the PLA 203 Unit and the bandits at an abandoned warehouse; the failed attack led by Fifth and Sixth Brother on the village protected by the same unit; and finally the incursion of Lord Hawk’s bastion to annihilate his reign of tyranny once and for all. Nonetheless, apart from some gimmicky slo-mo shots meant to justify the price of 3D for those who paid to see it with the additional dimension (take it from us, it’s not worth the extra dollars), these setpieces unfold with the scale and spectacle that one would expect from Tsui, the latter two in particular pop with thrill and imagination using a combination of old-school stunt staging and some nifty modern day CG effects.

Not quite so successful is Tsui’s attempt to capture the poignancy of the historical event – besides Zirong, the rest of the PLA heroes are portrayed with as much dimension as a propaganda film commissioned by the Chinese government itself, especially when their enemies are cast as their complete opposites. A sub-plot based upon the reunion of mother and son – the latter a young boy named Knotti the 203 Unit rescues and the former who turns out to be Qinglian – is too manipulative to be persuasive, even more so when it is used to bookend the narrative with a prologue and a coda set in 2015 which is meant as a nationalistic message to the younger generation in China to remember their history and its heroes on whose legacies their present lives are built on.

Notwithstanding Tsui’s autobiographical intent (he had apparently been inspired to make this film when he first saw the 1960s Peking Opera of the same name in New York’s Chinatown), the nexus that Tsui draws with present day is stretched most tenuously with an utterly unnecessary alternate ending that sees the Wolverine-lookalike Zirong turn into the very superhero by trying to rescue Qinglian from a twin-propeller plane that Lord Hawk is trying to take off in from a private airstrip in the mountain. As far as analogies go, this is a perfect example of the Chinese saying ‘draw snake add feet’ – so much so that its inclusion almost takes way what legitimacy Tsui had tried to build into the story in the first place.

As probably his first historical epic, ‘The Taking of Tiger Mountain’ sees Tsui Hark struggle to find the right balance between reality and myth. Tsui’s best films have been those which have allowed him to express his own inner eccentricities, but which prove out of place in a straightforward recount like this. The narrative flaws are all too obvious at the start and at the end, but thankfully, as far as the titular tale is concerned, Tsui has fashioned a gripping story of espionage that does history justice.

Movie Rating:

(A flawed, but nonetheless thrilling, historical epic that rests on some good old gripping storytelling and a strong lead performance by Zhang Hanyu)

Review by Gabriel Chong