Reviews

One Piece somehow managed to pull it off: a legit great live-action anime. It does a great job adapting the first East Blue saga (first 95 manga chapters and 45 anime episodes), condensed down to eight hour-long episodes. It's mostly faithful to the source material, but condenses down some stuff and makes some changes for a live-action format.

For One Piece fans, it's a great way to revisit the early East Blue saga. I watched the anime version of that saga almost 20 years ago, so it felt fresh watching a live-action version after all this time. The story beats and character development have been mostly preserved, with some foreshadowing added, and the fights are very well-choreographed.

The original Japanese anime is a 10/10 show for me. The live-action does fall short of the anime in some ways, but it's as close as it gets. At the very least, the live action is far better than the terrible 4Kids anime dub.

An Akira Kurosawa movie that is impressive for a crime film made in the 1940s, although I'm not sure how well it compares to Hitchcock's classics which I have yet to see. However, Stray Dog is comparable to quite a few well known modern-day crime films (like Seven for example), although I liked Stray Dog better.

The film is very modern in the way the story unfolds, the relationships between the two policemen, the way the investigation is carried out, the way the criminal is revealed, etc. However, it is also a story unique to late 1940s post-war Japan and is not something that could be recreated in the modern day. As usual, Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura once again gave great performances as the main characters in the movie.

Highly recommended for Kurosawa fans as well as fans of crime films in general.

7/10

A musical melodrama from the Hindi film industry of Bombay, now popularly known as "Bollywood", although it wasn't called that back then. Well this movie is certainly a lot better than any of the more recent "Bollywood" musicals I've seen, and it's probably even one of the best musicals I've ever seen from anywhere. What really stands out in Pyaasa in particular is how the music is often used to express serious themes and social critiques, which is something I've rarely ever seen in a musical. The ending was also quite unexpected and very moving. The last few scenes and dialogues in particular were powerful and had a lot of meaning to them.

The star of the show here is Guru Dutt, who was not only the director and producer, but also starred in the film as the protagonist Vijay (a struggling poet from the slums), comparable to the versatility of Orson Welles in Citizen Kane. The two main actresses in the film, Mala Sinha as the married ex-girlfriend Meena and especially Waheeda Rehman as the prostitute Gulabo, were also impressive. In some ways, the story has some similarities to that of Moulin Rouge! (2001) but even better than that in my opinion. The music by S. D. Burman and his son R. D. Burman also has a timeless feel to it. I would highly recommend this movie to musical fans, or even if one is not a musical fan, I still think it's worth checking out.

9/10

This is an anime movie based on my most favourite animated series of all time, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (2007). The thing that stood out most about the series was its sheer epic scale that surpassed anything I'd ever seen before. However, this movie only covers the first half of the series, so it doesn't quite reach the epic heights near the end of the series, though that will probably be covered in the sequel Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Lagan-Hen (2009) releasing later this year.

Although it's not quite as amazing as the anime TV series, since director Hiroyuki Imaishi obviously had to squeeze a lot of episodes down into just two hours, I think he did a very good job of it. A few welcome changes to the plot and battle scenes were also made to give fans something new to see. Overall, it was incredibly enjoyable and very moving to watch, though one might need to watch the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann TV series first (or at least be familiar with anime in general) to really enjoy this movie.

9/10

My opinions on this movie are a bit mixed. The opening for the film was brilliant as it delves into the early life of Vito Corleone and then flash-forwards to the story of his son Michael Corleone following the events of The Godfather (1972). It was all interesting up until it started faltering during the lengthy middle portion of the film, when Michael travels around to various different places meeting different underworld figures. The pacing and editing was quite bad during the middle portion, so much so that I even found it somewhat boring to watch. It could have been better if Francis Ford Coppola was willing to trim some bits here and there during the middle portion. Nevertheless, the final portion of the film was back on track and largely made up for the weak middle portion. Like the original Godfather, the last 80 minutes of The Godfather Part II were very gripping and moving, with the ending probably being even more powerful than that of the original. The film had the potential to be just as good as, if not better than, the original Godfather if only if it wasn't for the overall inconsistency and the weak middle portion of the film.

As for the performances, Al Pacino was again brilliant as Michael Corleone, while Robert De Niro was also very believable as a young Vito Corleone. The other cast members were also impressive, with some of the more minor characters from the first film, like John Cazale (as Fredo Corleone) and Diane Keaton (as Kay), getting more major roles this time around. Although I have criticized this film quite a bit, those criticisms are only relative to its predecessor, as The Godfather Part II is still quite easily among the greatest crime films of all time in its own right.

9/10

This movie is a biopic about Ip Man, the most influential master of the Wing Chun martial art. This is one of the few martial arts movies where I was actually impressed by the storyline. It's not the first time a World War II setting was used for a martial arts movie, since the Jet Li movies "Fist of Legend" and "Born to Defend" were also set during World War II. However, the plots in those movies were essentially the same old revenge story lines, which Ip Man most certainly is not. This movie is rather about a martial artist just trying to scrape a living in a time of war and poverty, like how "The Cinderella Man" was about a boxer trying to make a living during the Great Depression.

On top of the very good storyline, the fight scenes are also very impressive, so much so that it inspired me to start taking Wing Chun classes again (I went once before but didn't return until last week). The weird thing is that I found out that our local Wing Chun sifu (master) had trained under Ip Man's son and was one of the choreographers for the movie. It turns out that was the main reason why a lot of his other students joined his classes, although I had no idea about this myself.

As for the performances, Donnie Yen is clearly the star of the show. It's nice to see him finally getting such a major role, which he has performed brilliantly, not only in the incredible fight scenes but also in his subtle portrayal of Ip Man's struggles. The supporting cast also gave memorable performances, particularly Lynn Hung as his wife Yong Cheng, Lam Ka-Tung as Inspector Li Zhao, Xing Yu as Lin, Siu-Wong as Jin Shan Zhao, and Hiroyuki Ikeuchi as General Miura.

My only criticisms against this movie is that the last one-third of the movie was largely fictionalized, the final showdown itself felt a bit anti-climatic in comparison to the more exciting earlier fight scenes, and the finale came off as somewhat melodramatic. Other than that, this film is a must-see for all martial arts movie fans.

8/10

This movie was a big surprise for me. I watched this movie yesterday expecting it to be one of Akira Kurosawa's weaker films, but it ended up being my second-favourite Kurosawa film after Seven Samurai. All the other Kurosawa films I've seen were set in feudal Japan, so it was quite refreshing to see one set in post-war Japan for a change. While Kurosawa's other movies had a major impact on the samurai genre, Drunken Angel was arguably the earliest example of a Yakuza film.

Unlike the other Kurosawa movies I've seen, I found Drunken Angel gripping from the moment it began. Despite the film being shorter than the other Kurosawa films I've seen as well, the character development was very impressive and the ending was powerful. Being Toshiro Mifune's first major role, he obviously looks younger and hasn't yet developed his unique acting mannerisms. That's a good thing though, as it makes him seem like a completely different person in this movie. His portrayal of the Yakuza thug Matsunaga was impressive and very moving. The star of the movie though is Takashi Shimura (another veteran actor of Kurosawa movies), who plays the forward-thinking Dr. Sanada. His sarcastic dialogues in particular were excellent, without feeling clichéd at all.

I think it's a real shame this movie isn't so famous like Kurosawa's other movies, but I found this film incredibly moving and it is now my second-favourite Kurosawa film of all time after Seven Samurai.

9/10

This is probably the first attempt at combining a kung-fu movie with a musical. Although it's a bizarre combination, it could actually work if done right, but this movie however fails in many ways. The plot was silly and incoherent, the melodrama and comedy was over-the-top, and the movie was too long to top it off.

However, I did find some of the comedy scenes quite hilarious and the action scenes were also quite good in an over-the-top kind of way (like "Kung-Fu Hustle"). I would have given this movie a lower score, but it does at least have a few saving graces in its action and comedy, and it can be quite enjoyable if one is willing to suspend all disbelief. However, I would only recommend this movie if you are a fan of both Bollywood musicals and Kung-Fu movies.

5/10

Despite the film's now legendary status, I had only watched The Godfather for the first time yesterday. I've seen plenty of later crime films that were obviously inspired by it, so I was worried that the plot might become predictable for me due to my exposure to later inspired crime films. After my disappointment with classics like Citizen Kane and The Shawshank Redemption (both very good films but I wouldn't consider them to be among the greatest) last month, I was also worried The Godfather might not live up to my expectations. By the time I was 45 minutes into the film, I was completely gripped by the film's unpredictable plot and the lives of the characters, and it just kept getting better as the film progressed.

The plot shocked and surprised me at every twist and turn, and the film managed to keep me emotionally attached to the characters without anything ever feeling forced. Francis Ford Coppola's direction was brilliant in this regard, with dramatic events in the film simply shown as matter-of-fact, without any of the over-dramatization you often see in later crime films. The writing by Mario Puzo and Coppola was also brilliant, with plenty of foreshadowing right from the very beginning of the film.

Another aspect of the film which stood out was how it wasn't simply centred around a main protagonist with the others having minor roles, but nearly the entire cast was well-developed to a high degree. Despite the powerhouse performances by Marlin Brando as Vito Corleone and by Al Pacino as his son Michael, they never completely overshadowed the other cast members who were also brilliant in their own right, particularly James Caan as the elder son Santino, Robert Duvall as Tom Hagen, Al Lettieri as 'The Turk', and Diane Keaton as Kay. Even relatively minor cast members like Talia Shire as Connie Corleone and Gianni Russo as Carlo were also very believable. It is one of the best ensemble casts I have seen, with many of the actors later going on to become major stars themselves.

The score by Nino Rota was also incredible. Although I was already familiar with the main theme tune, I had no idea it was from The Godfather. The tune now seemed a lot more powerful after watching the film. Nearly everything about The Godfather is spot-on, with hardly any flaws at all. The only flaw I could think of is the first half-hour being a bit slow-paced, but it really doesn't matter to me anymore seeing as how amazing the film turned out to be.

In summary, The Godfather truly does live up to its reputation as one of the greatest films of all time.

10/10

I saw this movie for the first time when it came on television earlier this month. After seeing it at #1 on the IMDb Top 250, I thought this would be a good opportunity to check it out. The story was gripping and I especially liked the pacing, with the story moving along at a quick pace, covering years in a matter of minutes. The film was quite gritty and realistic throughout but started losing that quality as it started feeling more like a fairy tale towards the end.

Although the story was initially focused on Andy, it later became quite apparent that Red was the true protagonist, who Morgan Freeman portrayed in one of his best performances to date. I believe Morgan Freeman deserved an Oscar for his performance, although he lost it to Tom Hanks, who gave an equally great performance in Forrest Gump that same year.

Although I disagree with The Shawshank Redemption's ranking at #1 on the IMDb Top 250, I believe it is worthy enough to at least be among the top 100 films. If I had to sum up the film in one sentence, I would say it is a very gripping and uplifting film to watch.

8/10

After watching the Satyajit Ray films, The Apu Trilogy (1955-1959) and Devi (1960), I decided to check out some of the realistic films directed by other Bengali filmmakers during that same era. One of the films I found was Do Bigha Zamin, which won the International Prize at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival.

Although it's a Hindi-language film, and therefore technically a 'Bollywood' movie, the film's director Bimal Roy is from Bengal, thus the film has more in common with Bengali art cinema than it does with mainstream Bollywood as a result. The film does have a few musical numbers, like a lot of other Hollywood and Bollywood movies of that era, but what sets Do Bigha Zamin apart is its greater sense of realism. Beyond the few musical numbers, the film itself doesn't have much melodrama to it and there isn't much of a background score either, which is a good thing to me as a sappy or sentimental score isn't necessary for a film like this.

Do Bigha Zamin is very much a character-driven drama and the actors did a great job in portraying their respective characters. The performances which stand out most are Balraj Sahni as the farmer Shambu, the protagonist of the story, and the child actor Rattan Kumar as his son Kanhaiya. Nirupa Roy also gave a very good performance as Shambu's wife Paro.

As for Bimal Roy's direction, the film has one of the best depictions of poverty I've ever seen, covering both rural poverty in a Bengali village and urban poverty in Calcutta (now Kolkata), including the plight of street kids living in the city's slums. The film's ending was also powerful and it was overall a very moving film.

8/10

I heard about this film more than a year ago but didn't get around to watching it until last week. The first thing that stands out about this movie is Pan Nalin's superb direction and breathtaking cinematography, which depicts the 19th century Himalayas like never before in the first half of the film. However, the storyline was also quite slow-paced in the first half. On the other hand, the second half of the film, which takes place in modern-day Tokyo, doesn't have such a great cinematography but the storyline moves along at a much better pace, leading up to a hard-hitting and very touching ending.

8/10

After watching Satyajit Ray's The Apu Trilogy (1955-1959), which are now my favourite films of all time, I was looking forward to watching Devi, the next film Ray directed after The Apu Trilogy. Although I couldn't feel the same kind of emotional connection with the characters in Devi that I felt in The Apu Trilogy, this film was thought-provoking and very intriguing to watch.

Devi dealt with a serious issue in Bengali society at the time in a mature manner and Ray's direction and cinematography for this film was just as superb as The Apu Trilogy. It starred Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore once again as a married couple, like in Apur Sansar (the final part of The Apu Trilogy). However, whereas it was Soumitra who played the lead role in Apur Sansar, this time it's Sharmila who plays the lead role in Devi. Her performance was very subtle for the first half but her delusional performance towards the end was very convincing. Overall, I'd highly recommend this movie to any Satyajit Ray fan.

8/10

The only other Akira Kurosawa film I had seen before this was Rashomon, which I watched for the first time last week. After hearing much about The Seven Samurai, I also decided to watch this film today for the first time.

The first thing I noticed when I started watching the film is the incredibly long length: 3 hours and 27 minutes. I must admit that I initially wasn't terribly excited at the prospect of sitting through a single film for such a long period of time. Nevertheless, by the time the first half-hour of the film had passed, I found myself hooked.

I'm not really sure where to begin, but I guess Kurosawa's superb direction might be a good place to start. Like Rashomon, the direction for The Seven Samurai was well ahead of its time. In terms of cinematography, he made effective use of some of the techniques he had previously pioneered in Rashomon, one of his most influential examples being the way in which he points the camera up towards the sun, with the sunlight glaring onto the screen. I found these shots impressive in Rashomon and am equally impressed by them here in The Seven Samurai.

The story itself was also well ahead of its time. The now-common plot element of recruiting and gathering a ragtag group of protagonists for a specific goal began with this film and went on to inspire many later films, though none of them were able to surpass the original. I had already seen some of those inspired films beforehand, but what sets The Seven Samurai apart is its greater sense of realism, something which later inspired films seem to be lacking. The realistic aspect of the film truly shines during the battle sequences in the last hour of the film. They are possibly the most realistic and yet exciting battle scenes I have ever seen on film. There wasn't much melodrama either and most of the film barely has a background score to it (some scenes did have it but I found the music largely forgettable), and yet the film was powerful and incredibly moving, especially the ending.

As for the acting, Toshiro Mifune was again impressive just like he was in Rashomon. While I thought his acting was slightly more versatile in Rashomon, his performance as 'Kikuchiyo' in The Seven Samurai was much more moving and really made me care for his character. Some of the other leading actors in Rashomon also returned in The Seven Samurai, such as Minoru Chiaki and Takashi Shimura, who gave a very impressive performance as the group leader Kambei. Other memorable performances in the film came from Seiji Miyaguchi and Isao Kimura. The only issue with the cast is the obvious lack of female characters, with the only notable one being Shino, who was portrayed reasonably well by Keiko Tsushima.

Overall, Kurosawa has shown a lot of improvement with this film, as I found The Seven Samurai to be a superior film to Rashomon in nearly every way. In fact, The Seven Samurai is now one of my favourite films of all time, second only to Satyajit Ray's 'The Apu Trilogy' (1955-1959), which also happen to be from the 1950s. In my opinion, it was quite possibly the greatest decade for films, with 'The Apu Trilogy' and 'The Seven Samurai' being the finest examples from that era.

10/10

Yes, Meet the Spartans really is one of the worst movies, if not the worst movie, I have ever had the misfortune of watching. I'm not sure if we can even call this trash a "movie".

I'm really not sure where to begin. Not only is the movie almost completely devoid of an actual plot (besides the references to 300), but the jokes are not even funny. The movie consists of almost nothing but silly little jokes piled on one after another that have nothing to do with the movie and without anything to coherently connect them together.

The makers of this movie need to learn a thing or two about context and subtlety. Without any context or subtlety, the jokes just won't work. When will they ever learn?

1/10

I watched Rashomon for the first time yesterday. Although I've seen plenty of Japanese movies in the past, this is the first Akira Kurosawa movie I've ever seen.

The first thing that stands out when watching the movie is the direction and cinematography which looks well ahead of its time, like the shots where the camera occasionally points towards the sun. As the story begins to unfold, the next obvious thing we notice is the innovative premise of the film, now known in academic circles as the "Rashomon effect", where several witnesses give different interpretations of what happened at a scene.

The best performance in the movie was definitely from Toshiro Mifune in one of his first major roles. Whether he was over-the-top earlier on or more subtle and realistic later on, his performance was incredibly versatile.

After I finished watching the film, I was initially a bit disappointed that the film didn't spoon-feed us with a final answer, but I've realized that this is exactly what makes it such a thought-provoking movie. Now I'm really looking forward to watching Kurosawa's other most famous movie, The Seven Samurai.

8/10

Since this was a Best Picture contender for 2008, my natural reaction was to compare it to Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. Although they are both completely different kinds of movies, they do share a common theme of a lifelong romance. However, whereas Slumdog Millionaire starts out dark & gritty and leads up to a fairy-tale conclusion, David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is quite consistent throughout and doesn't try to be too dark or too bright.

It was very intriguing just observing Benjamin's growth (or rather, backwards growth) and at times I could really feel for the characters. This is probably the best performance I've seen from Brad Pitt to date, although I thought Taraji P. Henson gave the best performance in the movie as his foster mother. Overall, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is definitely one of the best movies of 2008 I've seen.

8/10

After watching Pather Panchali, I watched the sequel Aparajito the next day. My only criticism with the first film was the slow pace, but it looks like Satyajit Ray improved on this aspect for the sequel and thus eliminated any pacing issues I may have had with the original. This time the story moved along at a fairly quick pace, as we see months and sometimes years go by in a matter of minutes.

Although I often hear about Pather Panchali being regarded as the best in the Apu Trilogy, I personally liked Aparajito even better than the first. The story was gripping throughout the entire film, Karuna Bannerjee gave a truly Oscar-worthy performance as Apu's mother (even though it was only her second film) and the ending was just as powerful as the original (although Pather Panchali had a more powerful theme music). In fact, I might even go as far as saying Aparajito could possibly be my favourite film of all time.

10/10

I found Apur Sansar, the final part of the Apu Trilogy, every bit as superb as its prequels. I liked the pacing even better than its predecessors, as there was not a single moment that didn't keep me interested. Although the ending wasn't as powerful as its prequels, I thought it was a more hopeful and fitting ending for the saga. However, it did give me the feeling that I didn't want the story to end at all.

Soumitra Chatterjee's debut performance as the adult Apu was truly Oscar-worthy (like Karuna Bannerjee who played his mother in the first two films) and a young Sharmila Tagore was also convincing in her debut performance as his wife. Overall, I'd say Apur Sansar is my second favourite in the Apu Trilogy, after Aparajito.

Now that I've finally finished watching the Apu Trilogy, I must say this is probably the greatest film trilogy I've ever seen. Although it's a simple story about a country boy's growth to adulthood, it felt like I was watching a truly epic saga. Satyajit Ray really is one of the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century in my opinion.

10/10

I previously heard about Satyajit Ray, often considered among the greatest filmmakers of the 20th century, but had never seen any of his films or any Bengali films at all for that matter until last week. The Apu Trilogy is usually regarded as his magnum opus, while the first part of the trilogy, Pather Panchali, was the first film he ever made. I finally decided to watch it (with subtitles) last week.

I'm usually into watching more fast-paced films, so I wasn't quite used to Pather Panchali's slow pace at first. The film started out interesting, then got a little slow in the middle, and then picked up again in the last third which managed to keep my interest throughout. By the time I was finished watching the film, I found myself staring blankly into the screen for some time while in deep thought. I still couldn't forget about the incredibly moving ending, which was simple yet touched me in a way very few films before ever have, not to mention the unforgettable music by Ravi Shankar (whose music I had previously only heard in some Beatles songs but his earlier music in Pather Panchali was far more effective). It was probably one of the most powerful and memorable endings I've ever seen.

9/10