SYNOPSIS: Thirty-something office worker Mei Pao (Ariel Lin) works for a frozen food company, and believes that freezing technology can preserve everything, including love. After her boyfriend suddenly breaks up with her, she decides to preserve her chance of happiness by freezing her egg. While developing a new product, Mei Pao meets chef and restaurant owner A Shi (Rhydian Vaughan), who hates frozen food and only uses fresh ingredients. For his own reasons, he has given up on the thought of love. Because of their contrasting beliefs, the two often get into arguments, but soon an unlikely bond begins to form between them. Can Mei Pao's frozen love finally be melted, and will her frozen "Egg Boy" ever see the light of day?

MOVIE REVIEW:

Attention to all singles out there, if you prefer the squeaky-clean and totally ageless Taiwanese beauty Ariel Lin starring in a romantic drama/comedy instead of an edgy crime thriller liked The Mysterious Family then My Egg Boy is the perfect antidote to cure your loneliness.  

Pairing up for the first time with British-Taiwanese Rhydian Vaughan (Monga), My Egg Boy tells the story of the newly single Mei-Bao (Lin), a product tester who works for a frozen food company and her decision to freeze her eggs after her career cost her to lose a relationship. Before long, she starts to fall in love with A-Shi (Vaughan), an up-and-coming chef who has a hatred for frozen food and probably all things frozen.  

Just when you thought it’s going to somehow degenerate into a predictable romantic premise with location shooting in icy cold Scandinavia thrown in, director and writer Fu Tien-Yu actually has much more to say in her first commercial big release. She smartly uses food as metaphors to talk about one’s biological clock and stuff. My Egg Boy is well craft, meaningful and takes its time to build up to a sentimental climax that is more heartfelt than clichéd.

Running parallel to Mei-Bao and A-Shi’s bumpy romance is a subplot involving her Egg boy (Zhan Huai-Yun) and his friendship with a fellow Egg girl (Lyan Chen) in the fertility clinic. It’s a fantasy scenario no doubt but it dissects and discusses the outlook of our current society from their point of view. Once a while, Mei-Bao also opens up her heart and talks to her own Egg boy. It’s a quirky way of imparting life lessons and you can’t deny it’s cutely endearing for the most part.

My Egg Boy is blessed with two solid leads. Ariel Lin needs no further introduction if you are a fan of her Taiwanese dramas and the charming Rhydian Vaughan fully embodies a character that has a tragic past of his own. Newly crowned best supporting actress Elaine Jin turned up in a small role as Mei-Bao’s supportive mum. As always, her excellent acting outshone the limitations of her role.

Instead of presenting to you a straightforward and frivolous comedy, this movie outing turned out to be a pretty meaningful and inspiring romantic drama. The great looking pair plus the mesmerizing cinematography by one of Wong Kar Wai’s long-time cinematographers, Kwan Pung-Leung is a sight to behold. Despite the silly sounding title, you won’t be disappointed by Fu Tien-Yu’s My Egg Boy.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

NIL

AUDIO/VISUAL:

The DVD 5.1 audio track boasts clear dialogue and in a mood for love soundtrack. Taiwanese singer Yoga Lin contributed to the theme song which can be heard during the ending credits. Image is generally solid and sharp although certain scenes are intended to be soft.  

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee
 

Genre: Drama
Director: Lawrence Lau
Cast: Sean Lau, Lam Ka Tung, Louis Koo, Jiang Yiyan, Max Zhang Jin
Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins
Rating: M18 (Drug Use)
Released By: mm2 Entertainment and Golden Village Pictures 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 25 May 2017

Synopsis: This is a true story based on a repented gangster preaching the word of God and guiding his brotherhood to turn over a new leaf. Chen once was the leader of the famous gang “The 13 Tsz Wan Shan”, he lost his family, lovers, brothers and finally ended up imprisoned for his drug abuse and trafficking. After jail, he devoted himself to save the lost fellows and was selected as “The JCI Hong Kong Ten Outstanding Young Persons”. Being respected by the world, Chen is always asked to solve the most difficult situations between evil and good. People give him a nickname “The Fixer”. However, there are two sides of a coin, Chen can work out any problem of others, he does not know how to deal with his personal knot with his love, with whom he has had guilty conscience all his life. Can he fix it eventually?

Movie Review:

‘Dealer/ Healer’ is the ‘bad-guy-makes-good’ story of Chen Hua (Sean Lau), the once infamous gang leader of the ’13 Tsz Wan Shan’ who renounces his bad habits of drug abuse and trafficking after a prison stint and starts a rehabilitation centre to help those who were lost like him but are looking to turn over a new leaf. Otherwise known as Peter Chan Shun Chi, Chen also had a reputation for being a ‘fixer’, often acting as a mediator between two rival gangs before their enmity threatened to get out of hand and necessitated formal police action. Chen was also known to be fiercely loyal to his two buddies – Trumpet (Lam Ka Tung) and Kitty (Zhang Jin) – whom he made sure kicked the drug habit with him after they were released from prison. And last but not least, he was just as fiercely loyal to his one true love, Ke Rou (Jiang Yiyan), whom he first courted as a brash teenager, gave plenty of grief as a reckless gangster, and tries to win back the favour of upon his transformation.

It’s a lot to (pardon the pun) deal with in the span of just 100 mins – indeed, these events span in real life over three decades and could arguably be material for an entire TVB series – and true enough, veteran director Lawrence Lau’s movie could really do with some (pardon the pun, again) healing of its own. Chiefly, neither Lau nor his screenwriters, Chan Man Keung and Lin Huiju, are sure of just what they want their movie to be or what they want their viewers to take away from it, so much so that it simply ends up being completely scattershot. As a cautionary tale on drugs, it is hardly compelling enough; as a tale on brotherhood, it fails to convey that deep sense of loyalty between Chen Hua, Trumpet and Kitty; and as an inspirational story, it lacks a strong enough character arc for us to identify and empathise with Chen Hua’s decision, determination and conviction to make a fresh start. Probably the only thing it does fairly well is to transport you back to Hong Kong in the 1970s and 1980s, when crime was rampant, cops were corrupt and gangsters were the rage.

As much as this China-approved production (its main production company Sil-Metropole is, after all, managed by the Chinese government) doesn’t intend to glamourise the heydays of the triads, ‘Dealer/ Healer’ is ironically much more engaging when portraying the ins and outs of how drugs were peddled by these organised thugs. Oh yes, you can almost feel the conscious effort by the producers to denounce such behaviour by interrupting scenes of Chen Hua and his cohort dealing drugs in Kowloon’s infamous Walled City with that of Chen Hua being interviewed by a panel assessing his suitability for the ‘The JCI Hong Kong Ten Outstanding Young Persons’ award many years later, where he describes how and why he had renounced his erroneous ways of the past. And yet the former is probably the most captivating part of the film, portraying vividly the dark, dank alleyways of the City carved into districts by various gangs, the addicts hooked to its lifeblood and the police officials which help the gangs safeguard their turf and/or muscle into their rivals’ territories.

One of these aforementioned officials is Halley (Louis Koo), who saves Chen Hua’s life when the latter is found trafficking drugs on his own outside the gang and will come to develop a close bond of friendship with when he is released from prison. Unfortunately, Halley is treated as much an afterthought as Trumpet and Kitty, ultimately squandering the strong chemistry between Lau and Koo in no less than their sixteenth collaboration together. It isn’t clear exactly why Halley chooses to throw Chen Hua a lifeline, nor for that matter why Halley decides to become a triad leader himself thereafter – so besides popping up now and then to serve as contrast to Chen Hua, there isn’t a convincing reason why Halley is in the movie at all. Ditto for Trumpet and Kitty, who aside from underscoring how Chen Hua remained loyal to his childhood buddies through the years, don’t seem important enough to warrant much attention or detail – and therefore manifestly wasting the talents of two over-qualified supporting actors Lam and Zhang.

Undoubtedly, both wouldn’t have passed on the chance to star beside Lau, who is not only one of the most well-respected Hong Kong actors of our time but also one of the very best. Lau, who has built his reputation as no less than the Tom Hanks of Chinese cinema, brings his everyman likeability to a role that could easily have come across as sanctimonious especially in the latter half; instead, he plays the redeemed Chen Hua with dignity and humility, and is the reason we still manage to root for his character (such as to reunite with Ke Rou) despite the script’s slipshod character work. Lau also proves his versatility yet again playing an entirely different Chen Hua in the early bits of the film, so consumed by his own drug habit that he fails to see how that is destroying his relationship with Ke Rou as well as endangering the lives of his own buddies. There is no honour but plenty of humanity in Lau’s portrayal of a flawed Chen Hua, and with supporting characters flitting in and out, Lau more than holds the movie on the strength of his own performance.

Truth be told, ‘Dealer/ Healer’ would probably be a tidy little drama were it made in director Lawrence Lau’s heydays in the 1990s, given its strong distinctive Hong Kong flavour in theme, character and backdrop. Lau’s sensibilities, as well as probably that of veteran screenwriter Chan Man Keung, have not changed since that era, and on that account of being a full-bodied Hong Kong movie, ‘Dealer/ Healer’ would surely be good enough to recommend. Yet in the wake of much more arresting drug-themed movies like Derek Yee’s ‘Protégé’, Johnnie To’s ‘Drug War’ and Benny Chan’s ‘The White Storm’, ‘Dealer/ Healer’ comes off a lot less outstanding for its unfocused narrative and under-developed characters. Like we said earlier, it comes up short whether as a cautionary tale, a gangster tale or an inspirational tale. And like its title suggests, it is also ultimately bipolar in how it wants to ‘deal’ and ‘heal’, the former half proving to be intriguing and even gripping compared to a latter half that is always bland and occasionally boring.

Movie Rating:

(A lot better when it is dealing than healing, this bad-guy-makes-good drama is strong on Hong Kong flavour and nostalgia but weaker on character, narrative and theme)

Review by Gabriel Chong

SYNOPSIS: Dolph Lundgren and Bill Bellamy star in the hilarious next chapter of the Arnold Schwarzenegger classic, Kindergarten Cop. To recover stolen data in a progressive school, the FBI's toughest agent (Lundgren) must go undercover on his most difficult assignment yet: teaching a class full of liberal kindergarteners. Kindergarten Cop 2 is an action-­packed comedy the whole family will love!

MOVIE REVIEW:

Those who are too young to know might only recognise Dolph Lundgren from The Expendables series but the Sweden-born action star has been around since the 80’s portraying He-Man in Masters of the Universe, fighting alongside the late Brandon Lee in Showdown In Little Tokyo to pairing up with Van Damme in Universal Soldier.  

Unfortunately, with action stars liked Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger rising subsequently, Lundgren is largely reduced to DTV duds by the late 90’s. Ironically, he is now tasked with the honor of stepping into Schwarzenegger’s shoes in this reboot of Kindergarten Cop, an outrageous 1990 comedy that unexpectedly works because of the combined magic of Ivan Reitman and Schwarzenegger.  

Without Reitman and the original writers at the helm, Kindergarten Cop 2 is simply a disastrous forgettable direct-to-video title. The entire setup is shamelessly copied over except for some contemporary updates liked the frequent mention of a flash drive. The jokes often lacked a comedic vibe and the gags are lame. Watching a class of kindergarten kids suffering from sugar rush isn’t exactly funny and the meanest thing you will see is having a fellow teacher accidentally getting tased in the balls. A therapy pig also makes an appearance. Because this is a PG movie after all.    

While Schwarzenegger’s acting range is somewhat limited, he manages to be a tough and endearing sweet guy in the original movie. Lundgren on the other hand just looks dull and bored for the entire screentime even though he gets to romance a female lead (Darla Taylor) who in actual fact is young enough to be her daughter. The movie took like forever to setup that not only Lundgren is bored; we are equally as bored as him.

The story has tough guy FBI agent Lundgren going undercover to search for a missing flash drive containing confidential information on witness protection program. Some Albanian gangsters are also looking for it. Seriously, the whole bunch of them just looks plain silly to pose any real threat to Lundgren and so except for a pathetic gunplay in the beginning which happened in the dark and another silly fist fight in the end, we are practically left with a movie that is missing out on laughs and action.

Kindergarten Cop 2 is one flick that is best left alone. Highly recommended to avoid at all costs. 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

As if you need an additional 10 minutes of Deleted Scenes to prolong your agony but here it is. There's also a 2 minutes Gag Reel and Kindergarten Cop 2: Undercover is your typical EPK featurette. 

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Dialogue is clear and other than a couple of loud gunshots, there's nothing extraordinary about the 5.1 audio track. Colour reproduction and facial details are generally servicable for this DTV title.   

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee

Genre: Thriller
Director: Doug Liman
Cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, John Cena, Laith Nakli
Runtime: 1 hr 30 mins
Rating: M18 (Coarse Language and Some Violence)
Released By: Shaw 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 29 June 2017

Synopsis: THE WALL is a deadly psychological thriller that follows two soldiers pinned down by an Iraqi sniper, with nothing but a crumbling wall between them. Their fight becomes as much a battle of will and wits as it is of lethally accurate marksmanship. Directed by Doug Liman (Mr. & Mrs. Smith, The Bourne Identity, Edge of Tomorrow), THE WALL stars Golden Globe winner Aaron Taylor-Johnson (Nocturnal Animals, Kick-Ass, Savages, Godzilla, Avengers: Age of Ultron) and WWE star John Cena (Trainwreck, Daddy’s Home).

Movie Review:

There’s two sides to every story. And The Wall tries to paint that by pitting an American Ranger against an Iraqi sniper in a tense 90-minute standoff in the desert, with titled wall between them.

It’s 2007 and the Iraqi war has ended. Sergeants Shane Matthews (John Cena) and Allan Isaac (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) are a remnant duo, left surveying the site of a shootout from a distance. After 20 hours, the chunky sharpshooter Matthews calls it, and heads closer to investigate.

Turns out it was a bad move. A bullet rings through the air and he gets shot in the gut. 

His spotter, Isaac, runs out from his own camouflaged spot and tries to save his comrade, but even as he zigzags his way, he gets shot in the knee and loses his water bottle and radio antenna in the process.

With one man down and the other taking cover behind a deteriorating wall, the story is set.

Isaac tries to resurrect the satellite radio and fails, but gets thrown a lifeline when he catches someone on the local radio in his earpiece. Sadly, the “help” turns out to be the very shooter that took him and Matthews down.

What transpires next is a battle of patience, wits and nerve, as each tries to take the other down, brandishing props and words like weapons to wear down the opponent. In this case, the boyish Isaac is inexperienced and snarky, putting up weak attempts at getting the enemy sniper to expose himself.

The sharpshooter, Juba (Laith Nakli), however, is a masterful toyer. He emulates an American accent to get Isaac to reveal his location, and when discovered as a fraud, tries to cull an unlikely friendship, waxing lyrically, quoting Poe, while trying to lull Isaac into a false sense of security, saying that he “just wants to know you (Isaac) better.” This is not the barbaric villain that we might suspect.

Doug Liman directs this pared-down war encounter with finesse, specially when it comes to the camerawork. The shots are kept tight and cropped, and every frame is swirling in sand, blood or spit. It’s gritty and visceral, and with the harsh (but beautiful) desert light, one easily feels the draining heat crushing our American hero. The props are spare but poignant. From cracked scope to melted Skittles, the finer touches bring home a realistic hit to the circumstances.

Taylor-Johnson is commendable, as he holds most of the screen time after partner Cena is out of action early on. He has a certain innocence about him that serves dual purpose - to have the audience witness his vulnerability, while rooting for him as he schemes against a more experienced enemy,

Nakli voice-acts his way to a conniving sniper; a philosophical villain who snares his enemy to do what he wants, so as to prolong his agony. There’s some cheap stereotyping thrown in when he threatens to tear off Isaac’s face and to “cut off your (Isaac) tongue and staple it to your chest” when all is over, and although I didn’t enjoy this portrayal, it served to make Juba a vile opponent.

The Wall opts out of the usual blaring soundtrack of gunshot and music, yet rivets with straightforward acting and spiralling premise. It could do with a better script from Dwain Worrell, by buffing up the characters with another level of dimension, but this contained action flick is a welcome change.

Movie Rating:

(Nicely-paced developments and plenty of visceral close-ups serves up good tension in this refreshing turn at a war thriller)

Review by Morgan Awyong

SYNOPSIS: Jean-Claude Van Damme returns for a new chapter in the adrenaline charged Kickboxer legacy. Kurt Sloane (Alain Moussi) has always been there for his brother, Eric (Darren Shahlavi), who’s known in the martial arts world as a modern-day warrior. But when the ruthless and undefeated fighter Tong Po (David Bautista) brutally ends Eric’s life in a no-holds-barred match in Thailand, Kurt devotes himself to training with a master (Van Damme) in a quest for redemption… and revenge. Featuring MMA champions Georges St-Pierre, Gina Carano, Cain Velasquez and Fabricio Werdum, Kickboxer: Vengeance delivers a one-two punch of jaw dropping fights and death defying stunts.

MOVIE REVIEW:

The original 1989 Kickboxer wasn’t much of a movie to speak of except it featured a very young Jean-Claude Van Damme and at that time, some cool martial-arts sequences. Again that was 1989, almost thirty decades earlier.    

Van Damme returned in Kickboxer: Vengeance, a reboot of the original except that JCVD is playing the role of a master instead of a rookie and most ridiculous of all, they don’t even bother to update the entire storyline.

Akin to the original, Kurt Sloane (Alain Moussi) is out to avenge his brother after he is mercilessly killed in an underground match but Kurt is no match for his late brother’s powerful opponent, Tong Bo (Dave Batista earning some pocket money before the next Guardians’ mission). Kurt has no choice but to seek the help of a certain Master Durand (JCVD) before returning to fight with Tong Bo.

Kickboxer: Vengeance has all the qualities of a low-budget direct-to-video action flick, from jarring edits to laugh-out-loud props to bad action choreography. Yes you read that right. Bad action choreography for an action, martial-arts movie. That’s almost sacrilegious. To be fair, the movie does have a fair amount of action sets unfortunately none has the energy of say, Tony Jaa or even JCVD in his prime despite the fact they try to replicate a fight on top of two obvious dummy elephants and dozens of other forgettable bloody brawls. There’s also the obligatory training montage, which features numerous coconuts being kicked and smashed, and to make your money worth, even a swordplay is thrown in for the climax fight.    

Alain Moussi is a great stuntman, athletic and his moves are definitely much better than his acting. Mixed Martial Artist and actress Gina Carano (Haywire) is totally wasted in a role as a shady fight promoter. With sunglasses and a cool fedora, Jean-Claude Van Damme seems to be enjoying his time on set and he does get a few minutes of screentime doing his kicks while martial-arts fans will recognized the late Darren Shahlavi (Ip Man 2) as Kurt’s short-lived brother, Eric.

Sitting through 90 minutes of it, there’s nothing in Kickboxer: Vengeance that we can recommend actually. Unwatchable is the final verdict. If you have the time or energy left, perhaps seeking out the original Kickboxer might be a better option. The end credits featured a fun segment from the original movie, ironically the best thing in the entire movie.  

SPECIAL FEATURES:

NIL

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Picture quality is serviceable and the Dolby Digital 5.1 features loud aggressive sound effects liked punching, internal organs being squashed and ambience effects.  

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Herman Yau　
Cast: Anthony Wong, Michelle Wai, Jojo Goh, Bryant Mak, Funaki Ikki, Lam Ka Tung
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Rating: R21 (Violence and Gore)
Released By: Shaw 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 10 August 2017

Synopsis: Lam Sik Ka (starring Anthony Wong) is a professor at a prestigious medical school, and specialises in sleeping disorders. One day, his ex-girlfriend Monique (starring Jojo Goh) reveals that her entire family suffers from insomnia and desperately asks for help. Lam Sik Ka begins to study and conduct a weird experiment on her. The story takes an even more horrifying turn with the discovery that the laboratory was constructed on the grounds of a mass grave. A previously hidden connection between the grave and Lam Sik Ka's father begins to unfold…

Movie Review:

If you’ve seen ‘The Eight Immortals Restaurant: The Untold Story’, you’ll know why it has become a cult classic for fans of Hong Kong cinema – not only was it ultra-gory, ultra-violent and even borderline sadomasochistic, it did so with an utter disregard for decency, correctness and, some would say, morality. Its director Herman Yau and lead star Anthony Wong further applied those same sensibilities to ‘Taxi Hunter’ and ‘The Ebola Syndrome’, both of which have also achieved cult status and joined the ranks of their predecessor on the list of iconic Category III movies. That was more than two decades ago, and arguably Hollywood movies like ‘Saw’ and ‘Hostel’ and even Taiwanese ones like this year’s ‘Who Killed Cock Robin’ since have upped the quotient – as well as our tolerance – for gore and violence. And yet, those who loved their earlier collaborations will not be disappointed by this long-in-waiting reunion between Yau and Wong, which is just as, if not more, gloriously macabre and unhinged with its depictions of beheadings, castrations and cannibalism.

Oh yes, there is plenty to satisfy gore-hounds in the last third of the film, which we guarantee you goes positively gonzo in ways that you will never expect. A Japanese soldier gets his penis and balls chopped off and stuffed into his mouth before being decapitated. In turn, the man who inflicts this on him is shot multiple times at close range until his head is literally blown off. A woman starts chewing on her own flesh from her arm, before being eaten by a man who takes her arm off entirely. Rest assured that Yau has not lost his gift for extreme horror after all these years, and the scenes of utter mayhem here are just as horrifying as that in ‘The Untold Story’ (which, for those who remember, involve a man being bludgeoned to death, chopped into pieces, and turned into filling for steamed buns). Yet as much as these visuals excesses are the highlight of this very endeavour, they would nonetheless have necessitated a build-up which justifies their utter anarchy, and this is where co-screenwriters Eric Lee and Yau regular Erica Li fall short.

To be sure, their first half hour begins strongly with a montage of grainy videos over the opening credits that introduces the titular curse afflicting a Malaysian Chinese family patriarch, followed by the entry of Hong Kong neuroscientist Lam Sik-ka (Wong) who is approached by the man’s younger sister (Jojo Goh) to assist him. Sik-ka has been doing research on mice to investigate the effects of sleep deprivation, and is now keen to do the same on humans to see if it is possible for us to live normal lives without the need for sleep. The snarky, self-absorbed and egoistic Sik-ka has however been denied funding by his university’s research committee on the basis of ethical concerns, and is therefore seized by the opportunity to have a real-life test subject. Alas, his potential Patient Zero goes berserk in a hospital when he arrives and dies after running out and being knocked down, so the unscrupulous Sik-ka decides to break into the mortuary, peel off the dead man’s face, retrieve his brain, stuff it into a durian no less, and continue his research back in Hong Kong.

It’s as gutsy and gripping a set-up as it gets, which makes what follows pale drastically in comparison. Within that first half-hour is the suggestion that Sik-ka is himself haunted by some supernatural curse, which causes him to have visions of a scar-faced woman from time to time. Indeed, the scientifically-minded Sik-ka investigates his own affliction by going to a medium who summons the spirit of his late father Lam Sing (also played by Wong), thus giving over to an extended flashback that explains the origins of this curse. That drawn-out back-story set in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong during World War II sees the fluent-in-Japanese Sing reluctantly working for an unrepentant Chinese collaborationist Chow Fook (Gordon Lam) at a ‘comfort centre’ for Japanese soldiers, where a series of events will lead to Sing saving a young woman (Michelle Wai) from denigration, but earning the wrath of her vengeful one-eyed twin sister (also played by Wai) who dies after being tied to a chair and repeatedly raped by multiple Japanese soldiers over the course of a single night.

Arguably, splitting the narrative into two related but distinct halves allows for an interesting juxtaposition in the over-the-top bloody finale, but the impact of such a creative decision is dulled by the weaker 1940s-set segment that does not come close to matching the malevolence of its 1990-set complement. Not only is Lam Sing’s story duller than that of Lam Sik-ka’s, the former as a character is also a lot less interesting and well-defined than the latter. That is evident in Wong’s portrayal of them both – whereas he plays Sik-ka with a chilling undercurrent of menace, Wong doesn’t quite know whether to angle Sing as a hapless sidekick to Chow Fook or a realist who was less concerned with loyalty than survival, vacillating between one and the other without quite coming to a conclusion if we should sympathise with his predicament or accept that it was simply a fateful consequence. Unlike Yau’s extreme horror classics from the 90s, Wong’s character/s here are much more restrained, and without ‘The Untold Story’s’ Wong Chi-hang or ‘The Ebola Syndrome’s’ Ah Kai’s mix of unadulterated anger and psychosis, simply not quite as riveting.  

But like we said from the start, if your purpose is really to relive the over-the-top gore-ness of these Yau-Wong collaborations, then ‘The Sleep Curse’ definitely doesn’t disappoint. Notwithstanding, part of the cult appeal of these movies were also the social anger that they tapped into as well as the fun of watching Wong go completely unhinged as a psychopath, both of which this latest falls short. Arguably, it was always going to be an uphill task for ‘The Sleep Curse’ to achieve the same cult appeal as its predecessors – not only because audiences’ sensibilities have changed over the years but also because of how the cultural context has evolved. In that regard, Yau’s throwback to his earlier classics is probably best appreciated as that, and as long as (or unless) you’re in a nostalgic state of mind, you’ll enjoy this for the ultra-gory exploitative bit of entertainment it was intended and lives up to be. 

Movie Rating:

(As gory and violent as their 90s cult classics, Herman Yau and Anthony Wong's reteam two decades later nevertheless probably won't achieve the same cult appeal, because of its relatively weaker narrative and its less unhinged characters)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Comics/Action
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Cast: Tom Hardy, Riz Ahmed, Woody Harrelson, Reid Scott, Jenny Slate, Michelle Williams
Runtime: 1 hr 52 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence)
Released By: Sony Pictures
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 4 October 2018

Synopsis: One of Marvel’s most enigmatic, complex and badass characters comes to the big screen, starring Academy Award® nominated actor Tom Hardy as the lethal protector Venom.

Movie Review:

‘Venom’ may bear the Marvel logo, but it is a whole different breed apart from the Marvel Cinematic Universe offerings that most of us would be acquainted with. Intended as the first entry in the Sony Universe of Marvel Characters, this dark anti-hero tale features as its protagonist an unwieldy mess between a down-and-out investigative reporter Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and an ink-black alien parasite Venom (voiced by Hardy), both of whom share the former’s human body because the latter cannot survive without a respiratory host in our environment. Physiologically, as the movie tells us, both entities must find symbiosis; but psychologically, as the movie shows us, both are in a constant struggle to control the other, not least because Venom has a tendency to bite off heads to feed his thirst for human brains.

That tension between Eddie and Venom is and should rightfully be the highlight of Ruben Fleischer’s origin story, which was conceived in the comics as an evil analogue to Spider-Man and whose first big-screen incarnation was therefore as Spider-Man’s nemesis in ‘Spider-Man 3’. Together with his trio of writers, Fleischer finds much delight in what is pretty much a one-man buddy comedy; in fact, we would argue that the plot itself, which tells of how the alien lifeform had been unleashed on Earth’s populace through a space programme funded and run by the Elon Musk-like entrepreneur Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed) is just window dressing. Ditto the villainy of Carlton for that matter, which exists insofar as it is necessary for Eddie/ Venom to have a nemesis to show off the extent of their superhuman powers.

Otherwise, it is the clash of duelling personalities which really gives ‘Venom’ its bite. The banter between the two is consistently hilarious, revolving largely around Eddie trying to control Venom’s worse impulses. There is a running gag about Venom being labelled a parasite, whether by Eddie’s ex-fiancée Anne (Michelle Williams) or by her new doctor-boyfriend Dan (Reid Scott); and another about whose heads Venom is allowed to chew off and whose heads Venom should strictly leave alone. There is a particularly funny scene where Eddie decides against Venom’s advice to simply jump off the high-rise building he had just broken into, and is scolded by his other half at the elevator lobby for being a ‘pussy’. As he demonstrated with ‘Zombieland’, Fleischer knows his way around such irreverent humour, and Hardy nails it with his spot-on delivery of punchlines and quirky asides.

But those who have followed Hardy’s career ascent will probably be most thrilled by his physical comedy here, especially in the earlier scenes where Eddie is still trying to come to terms with the foul-mouthed, foul-tempered voice he has been hearing inside his head. One of the best scenes in the movie has Eddie frantically dashing from table from table inside a fancy restaurant establishment, grabbing other diners’ food against his will, exclaiming at one point ‘this is dead’ while holding up a steak, before finally plunging himself into a lobster tank and tearing into a live crustacean with gleeful relief. Oh yes, we dare say that Hardy has never been in a comic role like this, and he channels that push-pull dynamic in physically expressive ways that ensure we’re constantly aware just how both personas are and aren’t in harmony.

Like we said, the rest of the movie pales in comparison. The fallout from one of Carlton’s rockets crash-landing in East Malaysia that lets loose an Alpha-type organism of similar alien origin named Riot, as well as Carlton’s subsequent displays of cruelty and egocentricity, are only meant to set up the two big action sequences in the movie: the first sees Eddie/ Venom on motorbike evading an army of weaponised drones along the roads of San Francisco, followed by a vehicular convoy of Carlton’s security personnel along its steep streets; while the second sees Eddie/ Venom race against time to stop Carlton/ Riot blast off into space to bring the rest of their alien kind back to Earth to overrun mankind. Both are impressive CGI-enhanced sequences in their own right, given how much effort it must take to animate the slimy alien lifeforms, but probably nothing to shout about in the larger Marvel scheme of things.

Ultimately, it is the Eddie/ Venom dynamic which is the centrepiece of the movie, and thankfully Hardy’s riveting performance makes it work beautifully. The very badass nature of the titular character makes ‘Venom’ a wholly separate species from the rest of them MCU movies, and both Hardy and Fleischer revel in the freedom given for their anti-hero to be bad and exuberant about it at the same time, without necessarily going to the sort of meta-lengths which ‘Deadpool’ went. Perhaps because all it aspires to is to be a fun popcorn-type summer blockbuster, critical reception towards ‘Venom’ hasn’t exactly been that welcoming, but we’d be lying if we didn’t say that we enjoyed it much, much more than we expected ourselves to, by simply soaking in the wacky, weird but oddly charming tone that ‘Venom’ aims at. As long as you’ve prepared to let loose and not expect some noble save-the-world-from-mass-destruction superhero movie, you’ll likely find ‘Venom’ just as cheeky, impudent, but undeniably hilarious as we did.

Movie Rating:

(A one-man buddy comedy between a foul-tempered sentinent alien being and its restrained human host that boasts a riveting performance by Tom Hardy, 'Venom' is wacky, weird but oddly charming)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Lim Dae-Woong
Cast: Baek Do-bin, Jo Jae-yoon, Kim Yunjin, Ok Taec-yeon, Park Jun-myeon, Lee Han-wi, Park Sang-hoon
Runtime: 1 hr 41 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Coarse Language)
Released By: mm2 Entertainment and Golden Village Pictures 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 25 May 2017

Synopsis: After serving 25 years in prison for charges of killing her husband and son, Mi-hee returns to her derelict home. A young priest visits her and asks what really happened the night she supposedly murdered her family. She tells him, “they killed my husband and took my child.” The priest digs into the archive and finds several strange articles dating back 75 years ago. He uncovers mysterious similarities in each case. They all happened on November 11, exactly 25 years apart. That fateful night, it was November 11 1992 and Mi-hee knew she was not alone in the house.

Movie Review:

This might be the first time I’ve seen more ladies than men at a horror screening. No doubt the strapping Ok Taec Yeon had something to do with this.

In House of the Disappeared, Mi-hee (Kim Yunjin) goes under house arrest after a 25-year jail-term sentence for murdering her husband and presumably her missing son. But all is not what it seems. Mi-hee returns to the house with a palpable sense of anticipation - the maligned mother is eager to uncover the real mystery of her disappeared son and murdered spouse.

Taec Yeon enters the story as Choi, an inquisitive priest from her local church. Even though she has given up her Catholic faith after what happened, Choi probes into her odd behaviour, and eventually helps Mi-hee in her quest, discovering something deeper is afoot.

Director Lim Dae-woong shows potential in his mind-boggling korean horror. The art direction, sets, actors and story all exhibit finesse, making House of the Disappeared a meaty-enough thriller. The editing displayed is top-notch. The intercuts between crime story and post-jail mystery is seamless and stunning. It moves the story in a compelling way, making parallels of discoveries one after another.

The story works also largely because Lim has kept it well-paced, supported by an engaging unraveling. The supernatural occurrences suggest this is not your standard haunting, something which gets fully resolved at the end as pieces get put together, and a large peculiar device in the house is explained.

That said, the makeup department needs some muscle. The ghosts appear more sickly humans than spooky apparition, reducing the impact of the scares. There was plenty of room to push - the twin girls, the angry geisha - their appearances could have been more startling and horrific, if they hadn’t been painted like a caricature.

In one of the best sequences, a shamanic ritual builds to a climax, before the inevitable happens. The full reckoning, is again sadly softened by the amateurish cosmetics on the actors. The cartoonish application reminds me of the unfortunate ghouls in the horror franchise series Insidious.

Maybe more time was spent rendering Mi-hee an aged mother, and although the finer details of her wrinkles and age freckles turn up impressively, her stiff grey wig and awkward body movements fail to convince fully.

But overall, House of the Disappeared still works well. Korean horror hasn’t had a good mystery horror in a while, and Lim’s newest film is a good effort in the right direction.

Movie Rating:

(Mystery and horror work favourably in this offering, with a good premise and closed-ended finish to satisfy most)

Review by Morgan Awyong

Genre: Drama
Director: Simon Aboud
Cast: Jessica Brown Findlay, Tom Wilkinson, Andrew Scott, Jeremy Irvine
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: Shaw 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 25 May 2017

Synopsis: This Beautiful Fantastic is a contemporary fairy tale revolving around the most unlikely of friendships between a reclusive, agoraphobic young woman with dreams of being a children's book author and a curmudgeonly old widower, set against the backdrop of a beautiful garden in the heart of London. Bella Brown is a beautifully quirky young woman who dreams of writing and illustrating a successful children's book. Despite her abandonment as a child, the all consuming OCD, the unfulfilled dream, her awful boss at the library and her paralyzing fear of flora and fauna, Bella is down but not out. She has a spark, an edge, a talent and a voice that we can feel from the get go. This girl has a preternatural survival instinct, having been found in the middle of winter in the middle of Hyde Park as a babe. When Bella is forced by her landlord to deal with her neglected garden or face eviction, she meets her nemesis, match and mentor in Alfie Stephenson, a cantankerous, loveless, rich old man who lives next door and is an amazing horticulturalist.

Movie Review:

Despite the somewhat puerile choice of title, This Beautiful Fantastic proves to be an enchanting little concoction of magic realism and wide-eyed positivity in equal parts, the result of which feels like a crisp garden breeze in the wild jungle of humourless films that have glutted the silver screen of late. Fans of British television series Downton Abbey will no doubt recognise Jessica Brown Findlay (of Lady Sybil fame), who plays the lead character Bella, only this time on a wholly different kind of period set.

Faithful to the fable narrative it so aspires to, writer-director Simon Aboud’s film begins with a voiceover laying bare the whimsical details of Bella’s early life, enacted with all the stylings of a slightly less irreverent Amélie (2001). Essentially described as the “oddest of oddballs”, the story goes that she was discovered as a baby nestled in a makeshift box on the banks of Hyde Park’s lake, surrounded by ducks and bulrushes, before she was left to be raised in the care of Catholic nuns.

Cut to now – Bella has blossomed into an independent young lady with a penchant for drab vintage dresses and a compulsion for orderliness, which is depicted in the film with painstaking intricacy – from her preoccupation with the symmetry of food items laid out on her breakfast platter to the number of times she checks the lock of her door before leaving the house.

Inexplicably though, our heroine has trouble reaching her workplace on time, where she is otherwise generally competent as a librarian. Her respite from her general lack of job fulfilment and her boss’ constant rebukes by day? By night, she alternates between building pipe dreams of being a children’s book author and pining for Billy, a faux-geeky inventor with a millennial-hipster sartorial aesthetic (played by Jeremy Irvine of War Horse – when have awkward nerds ever come this dishy?) and who frequents her library to chat her up at every chance.

We also discover that the narrator at the start is in fact her hugely unpleasant and bilious present-day neighbour Alfie (played by Tom Wilkinson). Bella takes umbrage with the manner in which he ill-treats his Irish home chef Vernon (played by Andrew Scott), a good-natured widower with two daughters and a culinary know-how that rivals an uncanny ability to recite clauses from English employment and property legislation. Consequently, she poaches Vernon from Alfie, who soon realises he cannot tolerate a day without Vernon’s cooking and reaches a truce with agora-botanophobic Bella – Vernon will continue to cook for him while green-fingered Alfie will help her restore her decrepit garden to her landlord’s satisfaction within the allocated time frame.

The small cast of main characters are all quaint and imperfect in their own ways and as stories like these go, Alfie and Bella warm up to each other; cultivate beyond mere shrubbery a genuine amity, and help to smooth out each other’s rough edges. Naturally, the theme of gardening occupies much of the film while the three men in her life impart invaluable lessons on life, love and friendship. We watch as Bella emancipates from the trappings of her crippling phobias and cocooned ways while her dream of penning a fairy tale writes itself within this fairy tale of a film.

If it all sounds like a lot of sentimental slush, that’s because to a considerable extent it is, and this is also where the film is blighted by the same pitfall that plagues the most well-worn of feel-good fairy tales – namely, predictability. The metaphor of gardening in itself strains to be original while being exercised with an almost unabashed lack of subtlety (it’s fertile ground – pun intended, since we’re at it – for the obvious connotations of sowing, growing, nurturing and blooming). Plot-wise, the events of the story unfold with little sophistication or surprise.

In addition, the relationships between Bella and the men in her life don’t quite feel deeply developed enough; for example, the film feigns an interest in portraying Vernon’s affection for Bella as something a little more than platonic, and then abandons the idea altogether. And when you think about it, Bella’s greatest trials seem more like trifles – they consist of getting her garden back in shape, surmounting writer’s block, dealing with the tizzies of puppy love. The management of mental health issues are reduced to mere eccentricities that she has to get a handle on; at one point, she does have to deal with loss, but this is dealt with towards the end and only briefly (we won’t spoil it for you here). In other words, all the characters wind up feel a little flatter than they ought to.

Perhaps it’s easier to think of This Beautiful Fantastic as one best suited for the tween demographic, whether or not that’s what Aboud had in mind. Considering that the film’s strongest language consists of choice words such as “bloody” and “bastard”, and that the only thing remotely sexual that happens is a quivering first kiss and little more, this is all-too-safe PG material through and through. Even if it’s meant to be a saccharine fairy tale that shies away from being an Amélie rip-off, one almost wishes there were darker or more subversive elements to shake things up a little à la the likes of other young adult fantasy works by Neil Gaiman (e.g. the film adaptations of Coraline and Stardust) or more recently, Tim Burton’s big screen version of Ransom Riggs’ Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

Yet, despite all of the above and somehow, the film has succeeded in created a visually-pleasing celluloid microcosm of quintessential Englishness that still charms with its fantastical elements, vibrant hues and warm characters (performed by immensely likeable actors), so much so that we are willing to overlook much of the film’s flaws. From the ambiguously period-less fashion choices to the architecture and landscapes, down to the very British quirk of carrying thermos flasks of tea, the ethereal aesthetics of Bella’s world is a delight for the senses.

Indeed, props should be given to the cinematography of This Beautiful Fantastic, a true highlight of the film. When we are first introduced to Alfie’s gorgeous horticultural achievements, we are awed by the explosion of floral colours and the trippy psychedelia induced by the director of photography Mike Eley, with his deliberately out-of-focus close-up shots of Alfie’s garden in all its blooming glory. And in an age where so many films come replete with heavy-handed CGI sequences, a wondrous scene where a flapping mechanical bird (one of Billy’s idiosyncratic inventions) takes a literal flight of fancy reminds us that simplicity can equally inspire.

Depending on whether you view this quirky flick with the jaded weariness of a cynical adult or adjust your personal expectations for the consumption of tweeness, this fairy tale will either quickly feel quite uninspiring, or it may just quietly win you over with its heart, of which it has in plenitude. We opted for the latter and were all the better for it.

Movie Rating:

(Reminiscent of and yet lacking the edginess that made 2001’s Amélie successful, This Beautiful Fantastic feels more like an airy French soufflé than a hearty English pudding. Infused with lightly fantastical elements, this whimsical comedy-drama should nonetheless charm you with its earnestness and visuals)

Review by Tan Yong Chia Gabriel

Genre: Comedy
Director: David Bowers
Cast: Jason Ian Drucker, Charlie Wright, Owen Asztalos, Tom Everett Scott, Alicia Silverstone
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: 20th Century Fox  
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 25 May 2017

Synopsis: In "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul," a Heffley family road trip to attend Meemaw's 90th birthday party goes hilariously off course thanks to Greg's newest scheme to get to a video gaming convention. Based on one of the best-selling book series of all time, this family cross-country adventure turns into an experience the Heffleys will never forget.

Movie Review:

It’s been five years since the last ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ movie, so you’ll forgive returning director David Bowers (who did the last two instalments) for leaving his previous cast – whose child actors are now college-age – behind. In assembling the fourth chapter of the series, Bowers has also brought together an entirely new group of actors: Jason Drucker in the title character of Greg Heffley, Charlie Wright as his older brother Rodrick, Wyatt and Dylan Walters as his toddler sibling Manny, and last but not least Tom Everett Scott and Alicia Silverstone as their parents Frank and Susan respectively.

Drawn from the ninth book in author Jeff Kinney’s series, ‘The Long Haul’ follows the Heffleys on their 48-hour road trip to Indiana for Greg’s great-grandmother Meemaw’s 90^th birthday celebration. Though every other family member would have preferred to just fly there, Susan insists that the drive will be a great opportunity for ‘family time’; not just that, she rules that it will be an ‘unplugged’ trip, requiring everyone to surrender their cellphones or other electronic devices from the start. As you may expect, that restriction becomes a consistent and persistent source of tension along the trip, especially since Frank had not told his bosses he’d be taking the next few days off work.

Parents will no doubt identify with Susan’s lament of how technology has replaced old-fashioned face-to-face interaction among family, and even empathise with how the rest of the family do not seem to understand her best intentions for them until the very end. On the other hand, teenagers are more likely to find resonance with Greg’s plight, who endures an embarrassing incident at the family-style Corny’s restaurant only to find it acquire a life of its own on the Internet as a ‘Diaper Hand’ meme. No thanks to his humiliating claim to fame, Greg hatches a plan to take a detour to a video game conference, in the hopes of appearing in popular ubernerd-gamer personality Mac Digby’s next Youtube video and clean up his online reputation.

Yet as fittingly relevant as these concerns about technology and screen time are, this film cannot quite escape the generic genre trappings of a family vacation gone awry. Familiar bits here include disgusting motel rooms, overheating engines, broken sunroofs, tawdry roadside attractions and projectile vomiting, further reinforced by hackneyed jokes from the road-movie playbook. A recurring gag has Greg crossing paths time and time again with a hairy guest he meets and offends at a low-rent motel earlier on in the film, whom he nicknames ‘Beardo’ (Chris Coppola). To Bowers’ credit, he and fellow screenwriter Kinney milk the slapstick gags for as much good-natured humour as they are worth, lining these up one after another to keep the engine chugging along just amiably enough not to lose their viewers’ attention.  

To be fair, none of its predecessors were known for their inventiveness; at best, they were affable laughers buoyed by a genuine sense of heart for the growing-up struggles of a typical middle-school kid. Because ‘The Long Haul’ doesn’t situate itself in and around Greg’s schooling days (it’s the summer break, remember?), some of that heart is lost, and with it the pathos that made them heart-warming. Whereas Greg’s relationship with his school friends were clearly defined in the earlier movies, that between his parents as well as with his older brother lacks the same definition here, often going no deeper than the shenanigans he finds himself unfortunately mired in. So when the film tries to reach for poignancy by reaching for Greg’s feelings of rejection and displacement, you’ll find yourself feeling a little more nonplussed than the filmmakers probably intended.

That is not newcomer Drucker’s fault, who for the most part is just as endearingly hapless as Zachary Gordon was in the last three movies. Same goes for Scott and Silverstone, who settle into their roles as Greg’s parents nicely. There has been much fan outcry over the re-casting of these characters, but we think it would have been even more awkward trying to make Gordon look like he still belongs in middle school or switch Gordon and the rest of the child actors out but keep Steve Zahn and Rachael Harris as Greg’s parents. If anything, the most sorely missed presences are that of Grayson Russell and Karan Baar, who played the freckle-faced Fregley and the diminutive know-it-all Chirag, neither character of which is present in this family-centred movie.

In fact, this fourth ‘Wimpy Kid’ movie is less charming or enjoyable than the earlier ones because it ultimately follows the ‘everything-that-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong’ template of countless other family road trip movies. Not only does it lose the distinctive appeal of Greg’s similarly-aged middle-school misfits, it also doesn’t do the gags that we can recognise a mile away better. Yet, for that matter it isn’t worse than your average family comedy, so if you’re looking for some harmless fun with the kids, ‘The Long Haul’ will probably do fine. As a reboot-in-kind for the ‘Wimpy Kid’ film series, well let’s just say it doesn’t make a case for the next one to come anytime sooner or at all. 

Movie Rating:

(No more - and no less - than your average family road trip gone wrong comedy, this fourth chapter in the 'Wimpy Kid' film series skimps on the charms of the middle-school misfits from its predecessors and comes up less for it)

Review by Gabriel Chong