Genre: Sc-Fi/Action/Fantasy
Director: Robert Schwentke
Cast: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Miles Teller, Ansel Elgort, Kate Winslet, Jai Courtney, Zoe Kravitz, Octavia Spencer, Suki Waterhouse, Naomi Watts, Jonny Weston, Daniel Dae Kim, Mekhi Phifer, Ben Lamb, Maggie Q, Rosa Salazar, Keiynan Lonsdale, Emjay An
RunTime: 1 hr 59 mins
Rating: PG13 (Violence & Brief Coarse Language)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website: http://divergentthemovie.com
Opening Day: 19 March 2015
Synopsis: THE DIVERGENT SERIES: INSURGENT raises the stakes for Tris as she searches for allies and answers in the ruins of a futuristic Chicago. Tris (Woodley) and Four (James) are now fugitives on the run, hunted by Jeanine (Winslet), the leader of the power-hungry Erudite elite. Racing against time, they must find out what Tris’s family sacrificed their lives to protect, and why the Erudite leaders will do anything to stop them. Haunted by her past choices but desperate to protect the ones she loves, Tris, with Four at her side, faces one impossible challenge after another as they unlock the truth about the past and ultimately the future of their world.
Movie Review:
I’ll admit that I was among the minority that enjoyed Divergent and really wanted to like the sequel. But when the source material is as absurd as this, I doubt any effort from the crew or its talented cast could save the film from making audiences go “what?!”. There is clearly a ton of support from fans and the industry alike for this franchise, arguably more than that for The Hunger Games, to really transcend the YA genre. However, what disapponts is ultimately its writing.
On both the book and its script.
In Insurgent, we have a great wealth of Oscar-nominated actresses and it’s strange why so many would feel a connection to the project. The talents of Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer and Kate Winslet are totally wasted in the movie, all given only dimensionless cartoon characters to work with. Winslet fared the worse, her faux ice-cool attitude came across cringe-worthy at times. That is not the end of its casting problems. Up-and-coming talents like Shailene Woodley, Miles Teller (Whiplash) and Ansel Elgort, while given the bulk of the film’s screentime, could only do their best to elevate their poorly-written lines. Ironically, all were in last summer’s The Fault In Our Stars, a much more emotionally complex film.
Woodley is a future star. You can see that clearly in a film where she was one of the only saving grace. She’s not Jennifer Lawrence-level yet but there’s no reason to believe that she would not reach there ultimately. These two actresses have tons of similarities and they both possess the same asset, relatability. In a movie so far-fetched you could almost hear the director chuckle while filming, Woodley is the one human element in a movie that desperately needed it. In one particular scene in which Tris, her character, was made to tell the truth, the pain and anguish she so powerfully portrayed was sent straight through the screen to audiences and it was incredible to watch. The same cannot be said of Theo James, who only serves to be the mandatory eye-candy in what was a shockingly wooden and might I say, unlikable, performance.
That may not entirely be his fault. The screenplay, written by Brain Duffield, Akvia Goldsman and Mark Bomback, had no soul to it. Character intentions possesed no development and by the end of the movie, audiences were forced to accept so many ridiculous plot points that had no motivations behind them. Now, that may also not entirely be the writers’ fault because its source material written by Veronica Roth is really testing the realms of believabillity. Regardless, there was a lot of could have been done to better translate the story into the big screen, but the effort ultimately felt lazy.
Not everything was awful though. The cinematography looked stunning, almost video game-like, and its pacing was tense enough to create an entertaining piece of cinema. This movie knew its target audience and did away with any cheesy message, which really helped moved the film briskly enough. Despite the horrible twist that we all knew had to be coming, the cool looking visuals did more than enough to tide audiences through its glaring problems. We should also applaud the film’s choice of using non-white actors for a few roles, even though the decision had no important purpose to it.
The third book is reportedly being split into 2 parts, similar to its big sister, The Hunger Games. However, theatres are quickly becoming over-saturated with movies so similar in message and plot that the film’s producers should really consider finishing off the franchise as quickly as possible. Insurgent contained so much that had already been seen in previous Maze Runner and Hunger Games movies that audiences are rapidly tiring of it. In doing so, a more thought-out script that has a decent amount of development could be focused on, while mantaining the pacing of its predecessors.
Movie Rating:
(Only for fans of the book, its cast or the genre. Or if you enjoy a few cynical laughs)
Review by Brandon Chua
Genre: Crime/Thriller
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tang Wei, Wang Leehom, John Ortiz, Viola Davis, Simon McBurney, Maxine Peake, Harry Lloyd, Charlotte Hope, Georg Nikoloff, Kenton Hall
RunTime: 2 hrs 13 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Scene of Intimacy and Some Coarse Language)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: http://www.blackhat-thefilm.com/
Opening Day: 15 January 2015
Synopsis: Set within the world of global cybercrime, Legendary's Blackhat follows a furloughed convict and his American and Chinese partners as they hunt a high-level cybercrime network from Chicago to Los Angeles to Hong Kong to Jakarta.
Movie Review:
Never had we thought that we would describe a Michael Mann film as dull, but ‘Blackhat’ has just earned that credit. Even though its premise seems ripe to tap into the paranoid zeitgeist of today’s Digital Age, Mann’s cyberthriller is an interminable bore for a ponderous 135 minutes, so much so that we wonder whether this is the same director who gave us such gripping dramas as ‘Heat’, ‘The Insider’ and ‘Collateral’. And yet, ‘Blackhat’ possesses many distinctive Mann-isms – from the fluorescent-tinged visuals of the Hong Kong night sky to the familiar synthesiser score by Atticus Ross and Leo Ross to the cheesy display of machismo – that it is difficult to imagine anyone else at the helm.
A good place as any to start with just why ‘Blackhat’ is that dull is first-time screenwriter Morgan Davis Foehl’s script. Admittedly, Foehl does have an interesting hook in exploring the notion of the modern-day criminal, who assisted by technology, can unleash lethal damage to unsuspecting targets from anywhere and anyplace in the world. These criminal acts can be as unrelated as a nuclear core meltdown in Hong Kong to an artificial run in soy futures on the U.S. commodities market, and yet be linked to motives as vast as plain old simple greed to politics and even to religion. The former forms the prologue establishing the “blackhat”, meaning a hacker with malicious intent, which Mann gooses for maximum visual impact – in a single unbroken take, he dramatises the attack from a macro to micro perspective, culminating in a CG-ed representation of the plant’s computer systems, where little blue dots become a flurry of white ones as the malware takes over.
Assembled to investigate the attack is Chinese agent Chen Dawei (Wang LeeHom), who realises early on that part of the code used to break into the Chai Wan nuclear plant was that written by him and a former MIT classmate, Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth), back in their campus days. Besides forming an alliance with the FBI, led by agent Carol Barrett (Viola Davis), Dawei makes a request to the U.S. Department of Justice to have Nicholas, now serving time at a federal penitentiary for breaking into some of the country’s financial institutions, to be released from prison. It takes one to beat one, but besides Hathaway, Dawei also enlists the assistance of his sister, Chen Lien (Tang Wei), who also happens to be a computer expert.
Following a template of a procedural, their investigation will lead them from Los Angeles to Hong Kong to Malaysia and finally to Indonesia, though most of the time is spent in the former two locations – it is also in Hong Kong that the team will receive some help from the local police, including Andy On and our very own Adrian Pang. With Stuart Dryburgh’s digital cinematography, Mann tries his best to jazz up every single frame on the screen, and to his credit, makes the film look and sound more engaging than it really is. Besides the technobabble the characters are occasionally made to indulge in, this is as straightforward a narrative as any, where the good guys remain good and the bad guys, well, waiting to be hunted and, in some cases, hunted down.
Most crucially, Foehl makes some unfathomable narrative choices which severely undermine what sense of verisimilitude Mann tries to achieve in his shooting. In between reading copious lines of code, Nicholas takes down three baddies in a Korean restaurant in L.A.’s Korea-town, picks up a gun and joins a gunfight as if he were an FBI agent, and romances Dawei’s sister in one of the most chemistry-free romances we’ve seen in recent time. That’s not all – the final act has him, now a wanted fugitive by the National Security Agency, and Lien, make their way from Hong Kong to Malaysia and then to Indonesia and tracking down the elusive mastermind right in his very backyard using just a sharpened screwdriver and a knife, with not a single officer of the law in either country in pursuit. Any movie flirts with a certain suspension of disbelief, but Mann’s obsessive insistence on realism just makes the leaps of logic (and credibility) so painfully obvious here.
In between clunky lines of exposition, Mann fumbles with some of the most unimpressive staging we’ve seen in any of his movies. Any conceivable tension between the security agencies of China and the U.S is hinted at but quickly swept away, presumably in the name of political correctness (in order for the script to be cleared for shooting by the Chinese authorities). A shootout right outside the Quarry Bay MTR station sees Carol and fellow agent Mark Jessup (Holt McCallany) have almost perfect aim while the baddies (led by the nondescript Eastern European-looking Ritchie Coster) can’t seem to get much of a hit even with automatic sprays of gunfire. And as if Foehl’s revelation of the mastermind and his motivations weren’t anti-climactic enough, Mann underscores the monotony with a ludicrous showdown in the middle of a street festival in Jakarta where all its performers seem unfrazzled by a couple of White people walking amidst them in the opposite direction until shots are fired.
Mann’s choice to shoot in the same over-exposed, sometimes low-resolution, mode as ‘Collateral’ and ‘Miami Vice’ is alternately mesmerising and frustrating. The latter is particularly so in the Korea-town fistfight, which looks like it was shot and edited on a cameraphone made five years ago; nonetheless, the same technique looks great in capturing the melange of neon-lit signboards that dot Hong Kong’s Kowloon streets. There’s no denying that Mann remains a formidable visual stylist, but one wishes he could have chosen cleaner and more well composed shots to go with the ‘Heat’-style gun battles at the very least. Largely though, Mann sustains a moody intrigue throughout the film, complimented by a timely pulsating score by the same people who made David Fincher’s ‘The Social Network’ sound sleek.
But these are minor consolations in a film that gets increasingly laughable in its self-seriousness, both in terms of character and narrative. It is also, like we mentioned at the start, mind-numbingly dull, content to unfold at the same languorous pace for more than two hours. Besides being a complete waste of time, it is also a wasted opportunity, failing to seize the perfect timing afforded to it by real-world events for a tense but thoughtful action thriller about the vulnerabilities of our systems to ‘blackhats’. Coming from Mann, it is a huge let-down, and we might say, no better than the B-movie yarn that the similarly-themed thrillers ‘The Net’ and ‘Hackers’ were in the 90s.
Movie Rating:
(An exercise in the usual Michael Mann visual excess and nothing more – this dull and shockingly inept cyber-crime thriller squanders a prime opportunity to tap into the paranoid zeitgeist)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Lee Thean-Jeen
Cast: Jessica Liu, Jacko Chiang, Liu Ling Ling, Shawn Tan, Yang Tian Fu, Jennifer Ebron, Xue Ting, Timothy Law, Eelyn Kok
RunTime: 1 hr 25 mins
Rating: PG13 (Horror)
Released By: Clover Films & Golden Village Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 8 January 2015
Synopsis: When her seven-year-old son dies in a tragic road accident, a grieving mother, Jia En (Jesseca Liu), seeks the help of her former caregiver, Mdm Seetoh (Liu Ling Ling), to bring back his soul so he can be ‘by her side’ at home. However, after several strange and deadly occurrences in the house, she begins to suspect that there is something amiss with the soul she has brought back. In discovering what has really happened, she unravels the horrific truth … a truth which may cost her her life and the lives of those around her.
Movie Review:
Bring Back the Dead is the latest local horror film based on a short story by local story writer Wong Swee Hoon. The movie is both directed and written by veteran writer-director Lee Thean-Jeen. He is active in both television and film making since the 2000. Setting out with a direction of delivering a horror movie that is built on an emotional core, Bring Back the Dead is more than a regular supernatural horror movie.
Jesseca Liu plays the role of Jia En, who has suffered some form of trauma since witnessing her mother’s death when she was young. This memory starts to haunts her back as she lost her only child to an unfortunate road accident. In desperate hopes to ‘keep’ the child, she looks to her past babysitter Mdm Seetoh (Liu Ling Ling) for help. Mdm Seetoh refers her to a medium who is said to be able to bring back the dead. However, while religiously following the instructions given by the medium, something still seems to be amiss – is the spirit really Xiao Le (Shawn Tan)? Jia En’s suspicion and paranoia grows as the story takes a dramatic turn.
Unlike most horror films, Bring Back the Dead focused more heavily on the drama. Hence, there was a hefty screen time for Jesseca Liu. Undoubtedly, this is probably one of the more challenging roles that she has taken up so far. Jesseca did a fair portrayal of a grieving mother and the challenges faced thereafter the tragedy. However, the character development was limited.
The film was successful in maintaining the horror-thriller atmosphere that was slowly built up from the beginning. Most of the scare sequences were the usual ‘jump scenes’, which lacked visual impact and the lingering effect. You may also expect a few horror clichés (e.g. visiting the cemetery on a cold, wet night). Nonetheless, the sound effects and soundtracks were of great support to the film and did give the chills from time to time.
Bring Back the Dead delivers surprise in two folds – with a sharp twist to the story and having a warm emotional core. The bond and tie between a mother and her child is indeed one that is so extreme. It can motivate one to take drastic measures and risks, even if it seems insane and counters logic.
Surely the film still has room for improvement – in striking a better balance between the horror elements and the drama. For comparison’s sake, films like Bestseller (2010 – directed by Lee Jung-Ho and starring Uhm Jung-Hwa) had a better attempt at an atypical horror. Still, this embodies our local talents’ recent years’ effort in creating new styles and character to the Singapore cinema scene. Perhaps in the near future, we might be served an even bigger and better array of local films.
Movie Rating:
(A commendable effort on delivering a serious supernatural thriller)
Review by Tho Shu Ling
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SHAW THEATRES UNVEILS ITS EIGHTH CINEMA AT THE SELETAR MALLPosted on 16 Dec 2014 |
Genre: Drama
Director: Angelina Jolie
Cast: Jack O’Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Garrett Hedlund, Finn Wittrock, John Magaro, Alex Russell, Takamasa Ishihara, Jai Courtney, Luke Treadaway
RunTime: 2 hrs 18 mins
Rating: PG (Some Violence)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: http://www.unbrokenfilmintl.com/index.php
Opening Day: 5 February 2015
Synopsis: Academy Award® winner Angelina Jolie directs and produces Unbroken, an epic drama that follows the incredible life of Olympian and war hero Louis “Louie” Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) who, along with two other crewmen, survived in a raft for 47 days after a near-fatal plane crash in WWII—only to be caught by the Japanese Navy and sent to a prisoner-of-war camp. Adapted from Laura Hillenbrand’s (“Seabiscuit: An American Legend”) enormously popular book, Unbroken brings to the big screen Zamperini’s unbelievable and inspiring true story about the resilient power of the human spirit.
Movie Review:
Angelina Jolie’s first movie was the Bosnian war romance ‘In the Land of Milk and Honey’, a surprisingly competent little movie that packed a poignant moral message – and if anything, it certainly made her detractors sit up and take note of her as a serious-minded filmmaker. It seems entirely befitting then that Jolie has chosen to make her sophomore feature around the life story of World War II hero and Olympic runner Louis Zamperini, based upon Laura Hillenbrand’s 2010 non-fiction bestseller of the same name.
An Italian-American whose teenage years seemed headed towards juvenile delinquency, Louis found his calling in competitive track racing thanks to his older brother and soon became “the fastest high school runner in U.S. history”. That led to him competing in the 5000-meter race at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Then in World War II, Louis became an Army Air Corps bombardier flying missions over the South Pacific; on one ‘search and rescue mission’, the rickety B-24 aircraft dubbed the “Green Hornet” that Louis was on crashed in the water, leaving him and some of his crew stranded at sea for 47 days before being captured by the Japanese. Taken to a Tokyo prisoner of war camp, Louis was tortured by his captors, in particular a sadistic prison commander known as “The Bird”.
It is no doubt a remarkable story of extraordinary courage in the face of staggering adversity, and no wonder that such marquee screenwriters as Joel and Ethan Coen (yes, we’re talking about the Coen brothers), Richard LaGravanese and William Nicholson were attracted to the project in the first place. Yet in condensing Hillenbrand’s many pages into a biopic on its subject, these writers have left out perhaps the one most interesting theme of the book – redemption.
Opening with a thrilling sequence that sees Louis within the claustrophobic confines of a B-24 bomber about to drop its payload on a Japanese target, it sweeps through in flashback his early years as a peewee gangster and his transformation into a world-class athlete within the first half hour, quickly setting up his month-and-a-half ordeal out at sea. From here on end, the pace slows considerably, emphasising the minutiae of his time in a 6-foot-by-2-foot raft, sunburnt and dehydrated, fighting off sharks, feeding on the occasional seagull that lands on his raft or sharks that swim close, before finally being picked up by a Japanese vessel. The next hour is literally pure agony, as Jolie forces us to sit through an entire hour of Louis’ torture at the hands of his psychotic captor – in addition to striking him repeatedly for no reason with his wooden stick, Mutsuhiro “The Bird” Watanabe forces each and every one of his 220 fellow prisoners to hit him in the face one after another.
Thanks to Roger Deakins’ ruggedly elegant cinematography as well as Alexandre Desplat’s orchestral flourishes, the film is glossy, well-made and comfortably old-fashioned. Yes, there is no doubt Jolie had taken care to make a prestige picture that would be poised to attract awards attention come Oscar season; and yet for all its ambition to be admired, it lacks both emotional intimacy and impact, two qualities of which are essential to make Louis’ tale resonant with its audience. What is critically missing here is the human element to the story, which in its absence makes the overall experience disappointingly alienating.
The fault lies not only with Jolie but also her screenwriters, who focus only on two of the three subtitles of Hillenbrand’s novel. Indeed, there is no doubt at any point that Louis embodies survival and resilience, but what their film fails to show is his redemption, which is over and dealt with in a few seconds of text right at the end. So what we do not see is the man’s post-war trauma, including a five-year battle with alcoholism and a murderous post-traumatic stress disorder obsession with revenge before a religious awakening enabled him to forgive and even reach out to his captor (who never responded in kind) and bookend his Olympic dream by carrying the torch at the start of the Winter Olympics in 1988. Yes, it isn’t a good sign when we are more interested to find out what the movie hasn’t said than what it has about its subject.
That we manage to remain engaged throughout is testament to the strength of its lead performer Jack O’Connell, who makes every part of his character’s struggles real and relatable. You can see the awareness of danger in his eyes, or his hunger for escape, or his grit as he lifts a heavy timbre plank above his shoulder in the film’s signature shot. Every emotion is expressed keenly, and O’Connell’s alert and intensely focused performance is one of the film’s unequivocal strengths amidst its flaws. Though in a much smaller part, Japanese pop star Miyavi shines as his adversary, exuding malevolence in his menacing psycho-sadist turn; the fact that we hate his character so much is Miyavi’s achievement, and it is no wonder that some Japanese nationalists have called the film “racist” and for its boycott in the country.
If only then that Jolie had not simply turned a reverent gaze upon her subject; yes, her respect for Louis Zamperini is undeniable, but by simply worshipping him, this biopic fails to illuminate his human weaknesses upon whose conquering would truly make him extraordinary. Well-intentioned as it may be, Jolie’s sophomore feature misses out on the parts of its subject’s life that would make him a dimensional character, so much so that Louis is defined only in the movie by his unflagging heroism. Because of its omission, ‘Unbroken’ is in fact broken, a fractured movie that is stately and sombre when it should be gripping and inspirational. There is survival and resilience all right, but no rcemption to be found here.
Movie Rating:
(Stately to a fault, Angelina Jolie’s biography of the World War II hero Louis Zamperini turns its subject into a superhero and ends up being too reverent for its own good)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Drama
Director: Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland
Cast: Julianne Moore, Kristen Stewart, Alec Baldwin, Kate Bosworth, Shane McRae, Hunter Parrish, Seth Gilliam
RunTime: 1 hr 41 mins
Rating: PG13 (Brief Coarse Language)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website: http://sonyclassics.com/stillalice/
Opening Day: 5 February 2015
Synopsis: Alice Howland (Golden Globe winner and Oscar nominee Julianne Moore), happily married with three grown children, is a renowned linguistics professor who starts to forget words. When she receives a devastating diagnosis, Alice and her family find their bonds tested.
Movie Review:
Deal with it, Leonardo DiCaprio. While the world has been crying fowl over how you haven’t won an Oscar, this writer has been pinning his hopes that 54 year old Julianne Moore will be recognised by The Academy one day. With her latest work in Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s film, the American actress has been nominated four times (Best Actress for 1999’s The End of the Affair and 2002’s Far from Heaven; Best Supporting Actress for 1997’s Boogie Nights and 2002’s The Hours) – the same time Mr DiCaprio has been nominated, for the record.
From the universal acclaim for Moore’s portrayal as a woman diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease, including wins at the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice Movie Award and Screen Actors Guild Award, this should finally be the year the occasional children’s author steps on stage to receive an Oscar. It is easy for most viewers to flock to the cinemas to catch Moore’s award winning performance, and then discussing how natural or true to life it is. However, amidst all the award season hype, this reviewer found himself deeply affected by the film – mainly because of the subject matter it touches on.
Early onset Alzheimer’s disease is diagnosed before the age of 65, and is an uncommon form of Alzheimer’s, accounting only for five to 10 per cent of all cases. This film based on Lisa Genova’s novel explores what this means for the patient, as well as the people around her. Mooreplays a Columbialinguistics professor who suddenly finds herself forgetting things after a run. From there on, she struggles to manage her life, including her job, marriage and children.
Of course, as we all know, there can only be one ending for Alzheimer’s patients. The condition is something the protagonist cannot escape from. We see how an established person with a seemingly perfect life (family? check; career? check; social status? check) gradually loses things she holds dear. This is no sappy love story (read: Korean romantic movies) – it is a story that is happening somewhere as we speak. There is no melodrama with hysterical screams and dramatic outbursts. What you get instead are looks of helplessness and despair as the protagonist’s memories begin fading. And that is why, during the scenes when she desperately cries for help, they are especially heartbreaking to watch.
This film is not without hope though. The highlight of the 101 minute film a scene where the protagonist speaks at an Alzheimer’s Association event – as she highlights the words and phrases on her script, she talks about her short but emotion filled journey as a patient, fully aware that she will lose all memories eventually. The scene before the end credits is also one worth raving about. Seeing how someone you’ve spoken and interacted with on a normal, if not “taken for granted” basis, struggle to mutter the word “love”, it is a realisation how life still plays out beautifully with a loved one beside you.
If you have been following movie related news, this writer probably need not tell you about Moore’s performance in this film. You may want to look into her eyes while watching the movie (especially during the long takes where she is tested by her neurologist) – it is like hearing a dear friend speak, trying to understand how she wants to reach out to you. Needless to say, this is what has been getting the actress her awards, and hopefully, that golden statuette on 22 February. The rest of the supporting cast do a good job too – Alec Baldwin plays her supportive husband, Kate Bosworth and Hunter Parrish as her children who has received the greatest support growing up, and Kristen Stewart (in her best performance in a movie yet) as her daughter who Is pursuing an acting career.
While having someone dear to you diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease is definitely unfortunate, people around you, while saying their sorrys, move on. You learn how to come to terms with things and deal with issues that happen along the way. That, is what this film beautifully explores, and manages to have you walking out of the theater with the courage to continue your journey in life.
Movie Rating:
(A beautiful performance by Julianne Moore aside, this film looks at how, in the most difficult times, we can come to terms and move on with life)
Review by John Li
Genre: Comedy
Director: Adrian Teh
Cast: Chapman To, Mark Lee, Michelle Ye, Cheronna Ng@Super Girls, Venus Wong, Adrian Tan, Lenna Lim, Patricia Mok, Dennis Chew, Richard Low, Henry Thia, Eric Tsang, Lo Hoi Pang, Kingdom Yuen, Susan Shaw, Mimi Chu, Tien Hsin
RunTime: 1 hr 52 mins
Rating: PG13 (Gambling Content)
Released By: Clover Films and Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website:
Opening Day: 19 February 2015
Synopsis: “King of Mahjong” centres on the decade-long feud and eventual reunion of Wong Tin Ba (Mark Lee) and Ah Fatt (Chapman To), two top disciples of the legendary mahjong maestro, Master Ru. 20 years later, Wong Tin Ba, who is now a world-acclaimed mahjong champion and magnate, shows up in Ipoh to challenge Fatt to a final showdown ? The World Mahjong Championship. Despite Wong’s insistence, Fatt declines to join the competition as he is determined and contented to lead the life of a commoner. In a bid to force Fatt into the showdown, Wong abducts Fatt’s wife, Ramona (Michelle Ye), and threatens her to be on his alliance. Fatt has no choice but to join the championship as Wong holds his wife hostage. On the mahjong table, Fatt and Wong compete as the finalists; Master Ru’s secret legendary mahjong move and the truth comes to light as the winner emerges...
Movie Review:
Wong Jing was and perhaps still remains the undisputed king of the gambling-themed comedy, but that hasn’t deterred Malaysian director Adrian Teh from taking him head-on. Yes, going straight up against Wong Jing’s ‘From Vegas to Macau’ sequel this Lunar New Year is Teh’s ‘King of Mahjong’, which recruits as its lead star Hong Kong actor Chapman To, whom one may remember as the supporting comic relief next to the straight and dull Nicholas Tse in last year’s ‘Vegas’. Thankfully, Teh doesn’t try to ‘copy’ Wong Jing’s ‘mo lei tau’ frenetic style of humour; rather, at a surprisingly long 112 minutes, his ‘King of Mahjong’ aims for the same poignancy and warmth that made his earlier ‘The Wedding Diary’ such an unexpected success.
As the synopsis goes, To and our very own Mark Lee are pitted as bitter rivals from the same Master (played by Eric Tsang); and while To has lived a life of seclusion for the past 20 years selling ‘yong tau foo’ in an Ipoh coffeeshop, Lee’s Wong Tin Ba has travelled the world challenging rivals from Japan (Henry Thia in a not-quite-so-funny cameo) and China (Hayley and Jayley Woo in a slightly less hammy segment) until he is left with but one opponent, To’s Ah Fatt. It isn’t a terribly original story we’d give you that, and perhaps that is why its trio of writers – Lai Chiang Ming, Ang Siew Hoong and Ho You Wang – opt for a surprisingly character-driven narrative.
Indeed, short for a brief five minutes where he appears to challenge To at his coffeeshop, Lee is pretty much absent for the first hour of the film. The focus here is really on Ah Fatt, a single father who has been raising a precocious teenage daughter Sassy Bai (Venus Wong) on his own after his wife Ramona (Michelle Ye) left them when Sassy was only two years old. Fatt is worried that the headstrong Sassy will never find a suitor, and tries to get her to realise that she is in fact in love with a nerdy-looking neighbour Wayne (Adrian Tan) – who is also equally (but much more obviously) smitten with her. A lively supporting cast played by Richard Low, Patricia Mok and Dennis Chew round up the mahjong-happy 街坊 (‘gai fong’) to lend the scenes a nice ‘kampung spirit’ feel.
Tin Ba’s surprise appearance one day not only forces Ah Fatt to tell his daughter about the life he left behind 20 years ago, but also gives him and Sassy a chance to reconcile with Ramona when she returns shortly after with apparently no recollection of the past. Enthusiasts of the game will probably sit up every 15 minutes or so when Teh unspools an extended mahjong-playing sequence, but the rest of us will have to settle for some nice heartwarming family drama, which to be honest, isn’t an entirely bad thing at all. If anything, it gives To the chance to show off his acting chops without his typical goofy façade, and he rewards that opportunity with a nuanced performance that nicely balances the comedic and dramatic elements of the plot without turning it into farce or melodrama.
In contrast, Lee gets the (much) shorter end of the stick, playing a villainous self-absorbed character who is so hammy he makes you cringe whenever he comes onscreen. Tin Ba’s pursuit of his own vainglory has led him to ignore the people who should matter in his life, including his disciple whom he treats as his secretary (Lenna Lim) and a daughter (Cheronna Ng @Super Girls) whom another character rightly points out has probably gotten too much of sun for her own good. Ah Fatt and Tin Ba are clearly meant to be cast as polar opposites, but Teh goes overboard Tin Ba’s narcissism, so much so that he ends up a caricature next to Ah Fatt. There are also too few scenes of To and Lee together – besides that one occasion Tin Ba popped up to issue the challenge, the only other time the two actors appear together before the finale is in a flashback during their younger selves with their Master – so anyone hoping for a sparring between the two motor-mouthed comedians will probably come off disappointed.
That said, the finale is a guaranteed crowdpleaser. To gets to do his best ‘God of Gamblers’ – and we must say that he looks pretty cool. The qualifying rounds are surprisingly exciting, emphasising the battle of wits between the players. The eventual reconciliation between husband and wife/ mother and daughter is to be expected, but To handles the schmaltz with restraint and grace, such that it turns out unexpectedly moving. And that much-anticipated showdown between Ah Fatt and Tin Ba ends in a nice twist that underscores the feel-good message that Teh remains committed to right from the very beginning of the movie, which also serves as a timely reminder especially during this time of year when the sound of mahjong tiles can be heard in every other home.
We didn’t expect that Lee would be the movie’s weakest link, but that aside, ‘King of Mahjong’ is a surprisingly entertaining CNY comedy with gentle humour, some nail-biting gambling sequences and a nice heartwarming feel. To’s earnest heartfelt performance is one of his best and the film’s biggest strength, while a star-studded ensemble of Lo Hoi Pang, Susan Shaw, Kingdom Yuen and Mimi Chu lend a nice dash provide some delightful fun enacting the birth of the game during Confucian times and its modern-day relevance among older folk. It isn’t Wong Jing laugh-out-loud, but that is exactly why Teh’s ‘King of Mahjong’ is even better – not only are the laughs more natural, it also rings home a message about family, which is ultimately what CNY should be about.
Movie Rating:
(Chapman To does the best acting he has done in recent years, and this family drama-first, gambling comedy-second CNY offering is amusing, exciting and surprisingly heartwarming)
Review by Gabriel Chong
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KING OF MAHJONG is the top Chinese movie at the Malaysia box office last weekend!Posted on 10 Mar 2015 |
Genre: Action/Comedy
Director: Wong Jing
Cast: Chow Yun Fat, Carina Lau, Nick Cheung, Shawn Yue, Kimmy Tong, David Chiang, Angela, Jin Qiaoqiao, Yuan Qiao
RunTime: 1 hr 50 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website:
Opening Day: 19 February 2015
Synopsis: Head of the money laundering organization, Mr. Ko was murdered on his way to the Court by two assassins in an act to silence him.
According to the Interpol, Ko is not the head honcho of the organization. Above him is a Japanese woman, Ms. Aoi. Her headquarters is built inside an A380 plane ? her very own Sky Castle.
Cool is recruited by the authority as Special Investigation Agent to look into the case, mainly to follow Mark (Nick CHEUNG), an IT expert and the Accountant of the organization, and who also happens to be Ko’s cousin. Ken (CHOW Yun Fat) persuades Cool not to take risk, but Cool refuses to listen. Ken can do nothing but watch him go. However, Ken is later stunned to learn that Cool is in fact his biological son. He had him with his ex-girlfriend some twenty years ago and Benz is only the foster parent. Worried about his son’s safety, Ken sets out immediately for Thailand.
Mark is in possession of dirty money amounting to USD10 billion which he is trying to hide. Aoi sends two killers “Fist” and “Purple” after him to retrieve the money. They get into a fierce wit and fist game with Ken and Cool in Thailand. Ken manages to eventually save Mark. However, Mark is sly as a fox, he slips through Ken’s hands several times before he is finally captured. In the midst of it all, Ken stumbles upon his long lost love Molly. Aoi takes Molly away and forces Ken and Cool to board her Sky Castle for a treacherous game with Molly and Mark as the ultimate bet.
Ken is faced with the biggest gamble he has ever had. Life is at stake at the deathly height of 30,000 feet. Who will emerge as the ultimate winner?
Movie Review:
More than two decades after his iconic ‘God of Gamblers’, Wong Jing struck action-comedy gold at the box office last year with his unofficial reboot reuniting with its charismatic (and inimitable) star Chow Yun-Fat. That frenetic but frequently funny ‘From Vegas to Macau’ was also Chow’s first bona fide Hong Kong movie in years, re-establishing him as one of the territory’s most versatile performers after a series of Hollywood missteps and another equally uninspiring string of stodgy Mainland period epics. And if expectations are even higher this time round, well we’re glad to say that the sequel is not only bigger than its predecessor in most respects, it is for the most part also better in story, character, action, and most of all, humour.
Continuing where the previous film left off, Ken (Chow Yun-Fat) is once again approached by the authorities – this time the Interpol – to assist in apprehending the true mastermind of the international criminal organisation DOA. Turns out that Mr Ko (Gao Hu) which he helped take down wasn’t the head of the organisation; that (infamous) honour belongs to a Japanese lady known as Aoi, who has evaded the authorities by building her headquarters on board her personal A380. Though initially reluctant, Ken eventually agrees in part to protect his former disciple and current Interpol agent Vincent (Shawn Yue) – notwithstanding that the unexpected appearance of an old flame Molly (Carina Lau) whom he still loves deeply might have changed his mind as well.
The much-touted chemistry between Chow Yun-Fat and Carina Lau may be cause to be excited, but what truly gives this sequel its ace is Chow’s other (and male) co-star Nick Cheung.
Playing an accountant named Mark for the DOA, Cheung turns the second half of the movie into an excellent buddy comedy with Chow. In fact, Wong Jing knows exactly how to play his cards, and so after setting up the necessary to introduce us to Mark and then to do likewise for Ken, he pretty much lets the two male actors carry the weight of the entire film. It may be Chow and Cheung’s first collaboration together, but both actors play off each other like old pros. At an illegal casino operated by the local mafia and managed by his ‘White Storm’ transsexual co-star Poyd, Cheung does a hilarious impersonation of Chow’s alter-ego Ko Chun from ‘God of Gamblers’ – complete with black trenchcoat, jade ring and a bar of chocolate – such that their little switcheroo is utterly laugh-out-loud. Chow’s derring-do and Cheung’s wits will also prove a valuable complement when the former challenges a fearsome competitor (Ken Lo) to a Muay Thai match in order to win the prize money of US$1 million for the ransom to save Mark’s daughter from the bunch of local gangsters they had earlier ripped off.
Next to Cheung, Lau plays Chow’s former lover a little too stoically – indeed, it says a lot when Chow seems to be having a better time with his mechanical butler named Robot, a curious human-sized contraception that can pretty much do anything a personal servant can, from laundry to making tea to even a massage. A late upgrade even (literally) transforms Robot into an ‘Autobot’, fending off bullets from Aoi’s goons when they pay a visit to his ‘house of traps’ – you’ll recall from the earlier movie that Ken already had such a proclivity for booby-trapping his place. Other than watch Chow embarrass himself at Muay Thai and taking a brief island sojourn immediately after, Lau doesn’t get much time to rekindle (or kindle) her love for Chow in the movie; thankfully, a twist at the end somewhat redeems (and explains) her icy demeanour.
Compared to their scenes together, the rest of the film unfolds with the usual Wong Jing bombast. Clearly given a much huger budget, Wong Jing ups the stakes in every conceivable way. Opening with a shootout on the high seas where Ken is greeted by bikini girls with guns in jet-powered flippers, Wong Jing proceeds to blow up an entire low-rise apartment building in Bangkok and shortly after almost completely annihilate an Interpol team at their safe house with drones, machine guns and even RPGs. Certainly, that is the attitude with which Wong Jing has approached the jaw-dropping climax, which sees Chow and Cheung transported via helicopter in an elevator cab to Aoi’s fortress in the skies. Every single sequence has gotten a lot more explosive, but thanks to Andrew Lau’s crisp clean cinematography, has a fluidity that the earlier film lacked.
Yet, even though there are plenty of visual distractions, Wong Jing wisely keeps the movie focused squarely on Chow. He is its very lifeblood, its very heart and soul, and even though not all of Wong’s jokes hit the mark, Chow’s comic timing every single time is absolutely impeccable. He is also perfectly game - be it poking fun at himself or going topless for a boxing match – and knows just the right tongue-in-cheek tone to take with each line, such that no dialogue or scene ends up being caricature. Besides Cheung and Lau, Wong also surprises fans of old-school Hong Kong cinema with a brief scene of Chow at the mah-jong table with Eric Tsang, Natalis Chan, and himself. Still, nothing can quite prepare you for the final tease, which not only sees Chow reprise his ‘God of Gamblers’ get-up but also introduce Andy Lau as Ko Chun’s disciple for a ‘blast from the past’ that is worth the price of admission alone – and sets up the possibility of a sequel we already are standing in line for.
There is no doubt from the trailer that ‘From Vegas to Macau 2’ is bigger in scale than its predecessor was, but the introduction of new characters and concomitantly new cast members Nick Cheung and Carina Lau have certainly added vim and vigour that Chow’s previous co-stars Nicholas Tse and Chapman To lacked. Wong Jing is also at the top of his game both as a scriptwriter and as a director, clearly benefitting from his producer Lau’s own instincts as a filmmaker. And yet this film cannot be without Chow, whose unparalleled charisma and charm is its undisputed winning formula from start to finish. On sheer entertainment value alone, Wong Jing’s fast, funny and witty action crime comedy caper is the best Lunar New Year film we’ve seen this year.
Movie Rating:
(Chow Yun-Fat's unparalleled charisma and his buddy chemistry with Nick Cheung make Wong Jing's fast, funny and often witty action caper a sheer delight from start to finish)
Review by Gabriel Chong
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Official music video from RUBBERS (套)Posted on 23 Dec 2014 |
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