Reviews

All this movie is missing is the country standard "No Charge" playing over the end credits. The song where a mother professes her love for her son by saying "when you add it all up, the full cost of my love is no charge". Well, QED, we have an example of that here in the character of Hye-Ja. A poor woman living with her mentally retarded son, for whom both are the entire world to each other, this hardscrabble existence is monkey-wrenched when her retarded son is found guilty of murdering a young girl.

This movie plays like the evil twin of a Susan Sarandon issues picture, in which a plucky stouthearted heroine fights social injustice. One can imagine the Hollywood remake with Sarandon, directed by Tim Robbins in the works. However, this is far darker, subtler and Noirish. From a tender and heartbreaking examination of motherly love, it morphs into a movie that raises questions of class and justice in modern Korea.

Shattering, funny, dark and sad. This is a good one.

Three hours will fly by when you catch King Hu's amazing, spectacular "A Touch of Zen", possibly the greatest feat in the history of martial arts film-making.

The surface story about a poor student skilled in the ways of tactical warfare, who helps a master swordswoman and her bodyguard overcome the shame and dishonor of her father's murder at the hands of corrupt officials, gives way to a spiritual journey of enlightenment, making this an adventure film of the best kind, where the violence is only second place to the inner journey of the protagonist.

These three hours feature subtle romance, elegant action sequences that showcase the Chinese approach to psychological and strategic warfare, while yet serving as a poignant statement about the horror of war and the possibility of redemption.

The ending will strike you with a sense of awe that you have not felt since "2001", that's how good it is. For those of you who have not seen it, none will ever forget the sheer power and scope of the story that you have been told by the film's end.

A serious indication of the spiritual immaturity of the contemporary Hollywood approach, "Henry Poole is Here" is an overall silly film with a few good moments that show the seriously botched execution of what could have been a great story.

Set in a California suburb with an apparently prominent Hispanic population, Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) moves into a small house near his childhood home hoping to recapture the only time in his life that he ever felt safe. As a water stain believed to be part of a bad stucco job on his wall comes to be believed to be an apparition of Christ, Poole's house becomes a place of pilgrimage for many in his neighborhood. Meanwhile, the originally dour Poole realizes that fixing to die is so hard, that one might as well choose to live.

As a study on doubt, spirituality and faith the movie seriously fails, what with every character preaching at you about the wonders of faith in God as they experience His miracles. While Luke Wilson tries his best as Poole, the plight of his character is seriously compromised by what happens to him in the end, in a twist that reveals that he may be in fact a whiny jerk who loves to stew in his own juices, and why should we care about a character like that? Also a lack of discipline in the script and an abundance of extraneous scenes fail to keep in check the attempts at ambiguity that are at least fostered by the script for an overly compromised, "feel good" experience where a more ambiguous and thought-provoking one is required.

"Henry Poole is Here" has good moments of cinematography, some subtle special effects, and some good music, but it is an overall too silly and lacking in credibility to work.

Hang on to your hats, folks, this is one of the best films you will EVER see.

"Persepolis" is one of those things that reaffirms your belief in the human spirit. That's right, I said "things", not movies. It's a movie that creates believable souls, not characters, whose laughs and tears, triumphs and tragedies ultimately become your own, because its main character follows a quest that all of us can identify with: finding our place in the world.

Marjane Satrapi grew up in Iran in the last days of the Shah. While a notorious autocrat with American backing, he presided over the remains of a fragile and proud Empire that was already a hollowed out shell underneath an exterior of openness and splendor.

It is a journey that is sweet, funny, harrowing and ultimately heartbreaking. Adapted from Satrapi's own graphic novel, which I consider one of the best books I have ever read in the past ten years. Satrapi as writer and director is a modern day Scheherazade, conjuring up and making us able to feel what a vanished world was like, so that the reign of the Shah and the beginning of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the ensuing Iran-Iraq War, and Satrapi's own experiences in Europe as a teenager feel as alive and as adventurous as any voyage of Sinbad, and her instinct for storytelling matches the legendary Queen's. Under the retelling of her and co-director Vincent Paronnaud, black and white drawings do not just acquire personalities, they acquire souls and spirits.

This movie is a showcase of one of those things that only animation can do: boil a story down to its essence in the manner of a Moorish Alchemist. No amount of live action, however well done, will be able to render so starkly the brutality of the Shah's troops, so lovingly and so beautifully the minor irritances of first love, and the way that the tragedy of heartbreak segues into the childish petulances of resentment, and the freedom and bewilderment of a life adrift.

"Persepolis" is a wonderful, humane and bittersweet film, simply put, an experience to be treasured.

The dark world of Film Noir, with its complex plots, shades of gray and evocations of unrelenting human evil, has long been one genre where Hong Kong cinema has lagged behind Hollywood. After "Infernal Affairs", however, things have changed, and Hong Kong cinema has finally gotten to this profoundly affecting and challenging genre.

Jackie Chan stars as Iron Zhao aka Steelhead, a truck repairman from China's poor but happy Northeast who settles down as an illegal immigrant in Tokyo, and after a series of run-ins with the Yakuza, rises to power as the Don of Chinese illegal immigrants. However, things get out of control when Steelhead is foolish enough to believe in clean getaways in a world that offers none, and soon comes to seal his own fate. A superb supporting cast rounds up this tale of a man's tragic fall from Grace against an unstoppable tide of greed, corruption and evil.

Derek Yee creates a grandly atmospheric, neat piece of work evoking the grime and grit of Tokyo existing under the glittery clean streets, to bring out an immortal tale that has existed as long as there were cities: a tale of hard-luck immigrants who fight their way to the top against all odds in the world of crime, and for the pursuit of money and power, damn their souls to hell.

The first HELLBOY is one of my favorite Superhero movies of all time, and to me one of the most underrated of them all. Its mix of cool, urbane wit, loving references to Lovecraftian demonology, and the framework of a medieval morality play gave it true resonance and depth. It had its heart firmly secured in being the story about a son of Satan himself as an everyman who is trying to do the right thing despite temptations to do otherwise.

The second film seems however, to take its cue from classic Disney. For better and for worse. Like Disney's animated features, it is capable of great beauties, wonders and terrors, but like those features, its stance is much more conservative and guarded than one that Del Toro would normally push.If you recall the great Disney moments, like "Night on Bald Mountain", the dragon in "Sleeping Beauty" and the transformation and stained glass window sequences in "Beauty and the Beast", Hellboy 2 is like all those moments collected and on steroids, but it also has inherited the tame eco-mysticism of "Pocahontas" and the autopilot storytelling of most Disney concoctions. And for that it is missing the sinister beauty and poignancy without sentimentality of the first.

Go see it if you want to, and I recommend you go see it, just be reminded that it's not quite more of the same as the first for those who loved the first...especially if you liked it for the same reasons I did.

The one thing that can be said of this film is its utter bipolarity. Few films have been this bad when misstepped, and this good when right.

Andy Lau turns in a solidly chivalric turn as a wandering warrior-philosopher who aids a small city-state in defending a large, powerful army. He earns the ire of the city-state's opportunistic and mean ruler at the same time, and the love of a beautiful cavalry captain. Sounds like all the ingredients are there but the resulting mix varied wildly in quality. Other than Lau, Korean superstar Ahn Sung Ki as the enemy General, and Wang Zhiwen as the mean little ruler, a lot of the supporting cast is seriously vapid. Nicky Wu as an archer prince is a dishwater-dull Legolas-wannabe, and Choi Si Won as a spoiled prince is equally bad. Fan Bing Bing as the love interest and cavalry captain is lain excruciating. And don't get me started on the poorly-written African character.

The battle scenes are also poorly-filmed. I swear I have recorded better looking battle scenes using a game of "Rome: Total War". The sweeping vistas have moments of bad CGI, and some of the scene transitions, such as having a scene turn from live action to an oil-painting, or an up-front shot of thousands of bodies getting skewered by arrows: lack even the spectacle to be tragic in their artificiality.

And for a film that is about a Battle of Wits, it commits the unpardonable sin of resolving itself with a Deus Ex Machina I shall not reveal here.

Yet, the film is interspersed with moments of rugged beauty and palpable tension, thrills and stoicism, heroism and epic grandeur, that make one wonder how a film that got so much right, could also get so much wrong.

This is a movie I cannot really recommend, or not recommend in any sense. Watch at your own discretion.

After seeing this movie all I could say is: let Tsui Hark direct a live-action version of Jack Kirby's "The New Gods" if he gets a chance, because after this film he bloody well needs chances.

This is a movie that will too often go over the heads of everyone because it is big, extravagant, flashy, beautiful, but so visually-dependent the storyline will be hard to follow. The plot is basically Jack Kirby's "The New Gods" in a Chinese setting. With Zu as a kind of New Genesis.One doesn't need to know too much except that there are good Gods, and bad Gods, and the good Gods need to kill the bad Gods before they destroy the world. The characters, though fascinating, have none of the well-defined qualities of Kirby's bunch. As a result the entire movie plays like an overlong Final Fantasy game, though by that standard it's probably the best Final Fantasy game ever made.

This movie will mark a low point in Tsui's career, no doubt about it, and perhaps he really should try to brush up his storytelling skills next time. If he does he may just make a great "New Gods" movie...or even a new fantasy franchise to rival Lord of the Rings.

There are only two kinds of people in this wild and wacky extravaganza of a horror film, a kind of BLADE meets CTHD meets HOUSE OF WAX meets NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. There's the undead who terrorize the living, and the deadly exponents of martial arts who counter them.

It is the mid-19th century in China, and there are four of them known only as Wind, Thunder, Rain and Lightning. Following their master they are sent to combat a monstrous zombie king, the resurrected dead body of a powerful general. When their master possibly turns up dead they track the zombie king to a nearby manor, and what follows is a plot involving gold, thieves, dead brides and the Chinese answer to Vincent Price. If Vincent Price could do kung fu, that is.

Wellson Chin may have directed the film, but as with any Tsui Hark movie, if he's on it, then it means he's the de facto director. Maybe he's overworked himself too much, and it shows in his recent crop of films which are high on special effects that have yet to meet international standards. This is likewise, though his usual flourishes of the imagination show through, as in a scene where a necromancer scales a wall using only two small dirks, the overall tone of the film seems to be a showcase of excess, right down to the "predator"-style shots taken from the vampire POVs. A toss-up of hits and misses is what this film is, and it's all the more encumbered by Tsui's (ironically) trademark fast pacing that causes him to subvert the all-important "visual-aural-verbal" rule of screenwriting. His visuals swamp everything so much that his plot points have to be relayed to the audience verbally. This wild man of Asian cinema should probably take a break, brush up on his storytelling skills, and then return with that ball-breakingly cool flick to cap his career that we have all waited for.

In "Spirited Away" Hayao Miyazaki has crafted a gentle, whimsical fable for our times that deals with important and universal themes in a wildly imaginative manner.

The basic plot is less "Alice in Wonderland" than based in Japanese folktales of travelling to "other worlds" and in the country's rich and polytheistic mythology, where the protagonist is eventually reminded about the truth of this world. Here, the protagonist Chihiro is whisked off to another world where her parents literally hog up the place and where spirits and gods of all manners take refuge in bath houses.

The animation is simply wonderful, if enough hasn't been said of it, details adorn every frame, and the colors are rich and warm. Hayao Miyazaki adds his fertile imagination to his country's already rich folk myth and creates sights that range from bizarrely Tim Burtonesque to whimsically cute. The score, drawing heavily on Japanese folk music, is soaring and intense, and one just feels that amazing energy charging through one's body as one beholds the film and hears its wondrous music.

But what truly makes the movie shine is its witty and wise script, that while apparently a fairy tale has important things to say about issues like greed, environmental pollution, the consequences of single, overdoting and absent parents and what it means to grow up in a world riddled with temptation.

And stay for the credits and the gentle, beautiful closing song. This is an experience to behold.

Rating: 8 out of 10

One of the classic fantasy quest novels of ancient China serves as the basis for this film's story: JOURNEY TO THE WEST by Wu Cheng En. In it, the Buddhist Monk/Scholar Xuanzang accomplishes a pilgrimage to India with the help of three magical creatures: a powerful immortal monkey with an anti-authoritarian streak, a humanoid boar of immense power, gullibility and appetite and an even-tempered warrior monk. The same source material was the inspiration for anime like Dragonball Z.

In this case, The Touch starts off cleverly, and sort of creates the impression that it is a latter-day sequel to the novel especially in one of the fights that opens the movie: a re-creation of the famous scene in the novel where the Monkey duels with a hot-tempered Boy-God with the ability to manipulate fire. And with the fact that it is the Sharira (or crystal essence) of the Monk that is the motive for all the characters' actions. But it fails to cover this much further, sags in the middle and soon becomes a cliched and predictable adventure film featuring a booby-trapped room, fire, Tarzan-swinging and "leaps of faith".

Performances wise Michelle Yeoh is Michelle Yeoh, always up to snuff in her physical stunts and emotional nuances but set back by her grating Cantonese-Malayan inflections when speaking Mandarin and English. Ben Chaplin continues his trend of playing second fiddle to A-list females, from Winona Ryder, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman to Michelle Yeoh. He's just the kind of guy A-list women like to have in their movies because he looks positively impotent. Richard Roxburgh seems to have walked in thinking he was going to act in a Shakespearean stage play and pretty much plays his stock villain character larger-than-life with hammy delivery.

Cinematography is first-rate, and the music is surprisingly pleasing, and that's about all. The story is weak, predictable and has the depth of a Disney cartoon. Characters are one-dimensional and stock. Peter Pau can handle visuals though what he's done is virtually retreading old ground, but as a director he still lacks vision and the ability to astonish emotionally. Any astonishment is mainly from the way he handles visuals, rarely from timing or the way he works on the imagination. A triumph of set design over plot this is, but what set design, and what cinematography!

Overall this movie is an elegantly-shot with potential for greatness, but just becomes little more than a passably entertaining, shortchanging adventure by the end.

Rating: 5.6 out of 10

Anyone expecting Zhang Ziyi to kick butt in this film is bound for disappointment since she plays an uber-brat princess who learns to care for her people against the horrors of war. This is not anything like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It is more like "The Seven Samurai" meets "Gladiator" with a finale that borrows off "The Alamo" and "Ran", set in China.

The story has potential: through the arduous adventures of a group of Korean warriors, and their encounters with Mongols and Chinese (and an interlude with some Arab merchants), create a sweeping portrait of the internal and external turmoil of the Orient in the final days of the Khan. But yet many opportunities are lost. We never feel that there is enough depth to the themes explored here.

It aims overall, for the look and feel of a Kurosawa film and at times, a classic American Western. One scene even puts a new spin on the stagecoach chase. And indeed, director Kim Sung-Su does to an extent master the eye for visual spectacle that Kurosawa, John Ford and David Lean share. Helped by a thumping unique score and great cinematography. In terms of production design it is a triumph. The battle scenes are a medieval "Saving Private Ryan": body parts are lopped off, skulls are cracked, and necks are pierced.

However, he does fail to capture one of the things that made Kurosawa movies great: the sense of humanity and the affirmation of life. In the end all there is a tired message of a set of values similar to that of Japanese Bushido: live bravely, die with honor, as the bodycount rises to astronomical figures. Wilfred Owen called it the Old Lie: Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori. (It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country.) The way the characters in the movie act, you wouldn't know.

Score: 7/10

The old adage "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" certainly applies to this slice of cinematic drek. It's unkind to mock the efforts of others, hence I will not flame it in ways it's not been flamed before, and not focus too much on its plot holes, which are by now world-famous.

This is a movie that takes its parts for the whole, shot at an excruciatingly annoying Dutch angle for nearly every shot, it then throws in tired plot conventions, characters and a few scenes culled from other movies. Those scenes and devices worked well in the movies they came from, but in this one their impact was lessened because they weren't complemented or established properly. Such as the music swells, which would work at well-timed moments, but not to excess. The look is cool at times, stark washes of green, grey and black. Trying hard to uplift, it only becomes dreary and plodding especially in scenes detailing how "evil" the Psychlos are, excessive slow-motion during supposedly exciting chase scenes, and a badly-choreographed final firefight that has the feel of being culled from a video game with poor AI. It's such a waste because some of the characters do have potential, given the efforts put in by the performers, especially John Travolta, who's trying so hard to act he overacts in every single scene he's in. Then Roger Christian does know more than a few things (but very little more than a few) about establishing a sense of scale to the entire affair. The battles would have worked better had he chose NOT to use the stupid dutch angle.

This is in the class of "damn, how could they blow it" cinema, a sad waste of money and talent.

Like CTHD, Zhang Ziyi's other film so far, TRH is sheer poetry, and one of the best films I've seen.

Told with elegant simplicity, this film remembers what touches moviegoers are beauty, patience and intimacy. This film packs them all in spades.

A simple story about a village girl's undying love for a schoolteacher. TRH starts in morose black and white, when all seems so dull and lackluster, symbolizing the harsh reality of the present. But the moment the narrator begins to reminisce about his parents' courtship the film turns into a glorious palette of seasonal colors. As we trace the courtship of the narrator's mother, we see a moving tale unfold with craft and patience. Every time the sweeping score starts playing, one cannot help but cry. By the end, as the tale wrapped itself up among the themes of the impermanence of life and the strength of love, I applauded as the characters' laughter, tears and heartbreak became mine, and followed me out of the cinema.

Sheer poetry along the likes of CAST AWAY and CTHD.

As a Chinese from Singapore I just love the exposure Chinese talent is getting in Hollywood, John Woo, Jet Li, Jackie Chan and now Chow Yun Fat and Ang Lee.

CTHD is a smashing film. It is none-too-bloody, subtle and delicate in its handling, and that makes it a great contrast to your overblown Hollywood pictures. Chow Yun Fat plays Li Mu Bai, arguably the greatest swordsman in the "Kiang Hu" (the world of warriors) who tries to avenge his teacher and also retrieve his famous sword, the Green Destiny, capable of slicing other swords in half. The sword has been stolen by a masked thief under the tutelage of Chow's nemesis the Jade Eyed Fox. The thief is actually Jen (a name I HATE, her Chinese name is Yu Jiao Long, meaning the "Nimble Jade Dragon"), an aristocrat stuck in a pre-arranged marriage who wants her way out and living with Lo, a Mongol bandit she has fallen in love with. (I also hate the name Lo, his Chinese name is Lo Xiao Hu, meaning "Little Tiger"). This couple is in fact the "Crouching Tiger" and "Hidden Dragon" of the title.

The first thing that struck me about the film was Peter Pau's photography, it captured the Spirit of Chinese landscape painting COMPLETELY. In Chinese landscape painting, what is UNSEEN is just as important as what IS SEEN, the belief of "form before emptiness" to create refreshing poetic visuals is a part of Chinese painting philosophy. In this film we have large deserts in which humans become puny figures, a waterfall descending from high, as in the words of the Chinese poet Li Bo, "like the milky way falling from Heaven." Mountains emerge from a sea of mist and temples on the mountains look as though they were castles in the air. Wheere we have blasted to oblivion by loud, crowded action vehicles, this is indeed a welcome change.

The fight scenes are needless to say, wonderful. In one scene Jen takes on twenty competitors using the Green Destiny in a tavern single-handedly while reciting Chinese poetry. In another Michelle Yeoh's character, Yu Xiu Lian, fights Jen with an entire arsenal of Chinese weaponry. One other scene between Li Mu Bai and Jen is also wonderfully played out, and Chow Yun Fat shows he kicks ass in period garb just as well in modern garb.

The actors are charismatic and excellent, best of all is Zhang Zi Yi as Jen, she is beautiful, wilful, passionate, stubborn, feisty and cunning, and manages to bring out the complex motivations and layers of her character. Chow and Yeoh are solid as ever, Chow's a dream to watch: he's cool under fire, skilful and unwavering even in the greatest crisis.

Storywise, it is more than a straightforward action picture but a story that explores the differences between two generations, Li Mu Bai and Yu Xiu Lian are the conservative older generation bound by Confucian ethics and principles. Jen and Lo are the passionate new generation who believe in following their hearts as they please. It also takes time to explore the relationship between lovers, as well as that of master and disciple. And like many of Ang Lee's previous films, one's bond to the family.

The only flaw I can think of is the four different Chinese accents of the leads, Chow Yun Fat has a thick Hongkong accent, Michelle Yeoh a thick Malaysian accent, Zhang Zi-Yi who plays Jen is a mainland Chinese, and Zhang Zhen who plays Lo is a Taiwanese. The interaction of four accents is laughable. And also the diva ballad belted out by Coco Lee, the Chinese Celine Dion, is groan-inducing.

Otherwise, it's a beautiful film. The title is actually a Chinese proverb meaning "incredibly powerful, talented individuals who hide away from public attention" or "hidden dangers". Here it is a pun for Jen and Lo, who hide noble spirits under their exteriors as a spoilt aristocrat and a bandit. CTHD explores a vision as sweeping as the Chinese landscape, and as unfathomable as the Human Heart. This is a VERY GOOD FILM.

Rating: 89/100

Watching "The Patriot" is like eating a package meal. There's everything you could want, but nothing done with discreet detail. Want action? Bloody battle scenes by the ton. Want gore? Cannonballs decapitate soldiers and take out a few limbs here and there. Want humor? What about foppy Brit villains and falling-apart rocking chairs? Want family values? What about a tender father-son relationship and a subplot about Benjamin Martin's estrangement from his daughter? Want romance? what about Ben and his sister-in-law and Gabriel and Anne?

The film overall is two rungs below "Gladiator" in the period action piece catergory, but there's enough bloody fun. The performances are also fine all around, Gibson again gives his character turns of both "family man" and "battlefield maniac", Heath is a good-enough son, and Jason Isaacs is one of those sneering piles of evil you just love to hate. The battle scenes are highly watchable, even if the flag-waving bravado of Gibson at the end is slightly hilarious.

All in all, not exactly the summer's best action picture but a highly entertaining romp.

Rating: 68/100

A real letdown compared to the original series. This is a classic case of style over substance. The future Gotham is an Akira-Blade Runner hack of a city filled with so many Chinese billboards it starts looking like future Hong Kong or Tokyo. The old Bruce Wayne is a tragic and powerful character, but the new Batman lacks zing, and so do the new villains, the Joker's successors are a lame-o motorcycle gang that act more like menaces to public transport. There are none of those truly menacing villains who rely on panache, zing, energy and the ability to play a high-speed mental chess game with the hero and then disappear with style upon defeat. In the classic series, as well as in the Tim Burton movies, you got an unflinching look into the demented psyches of the villains as well as the troubled mind of Batman, this one has none of these insights aside from what we already know from classic Bat-mythos. Thus what the classic series and the movies created was a magnificently haunting world that could also be palpably tragic, where the thin line between sanity and insanity threatened both the forces of good and evil. This one has none of that haunting feel. Thus both the sides feel insubstantial and are unable to draw you in deeply. All in all a waste of good artwork and a cyberpunky soundtrack. It's turning a legendary series into fare for the "Buffy" crowd. Not to mention the writers are also those who work on shows like "Young Hercules".

Did I ever love this series or what! The "Star Wars" of TV animation if there ever was one. It grabs you from the startling opening credits (which features a stunning shot across a HUGE power station and another of a Death Star-like spaceship assimilating everything in sight, Borg-style.) and never lets go, except a few lame comic relief episodes. The characters had some of the most depth to ever grace a SatAM cartoon, and the artwork was some of the best I have ever seen. I am awfully shocked that it's not available in the US. Here in Asia it's on the Disney Channel, lucky me. And all of you are wrong, this series came before the comic book and the comic book has adhered little to its solid narrative structure. Unlike other video game adaptations this one did not let the story get overshadowed by the action. All in all a truly fantastic series whose impact on animation fans and anthropomorphic fans will not be forgotten. This one should have as many reruns as Batman.