Reviews

Love or lust at first sight

We meet an attractive girl about to be married to her fiance. They have been together for 7 years and they have lost the spark and heady rush of love.

An attractive stranger, whose business has just failed and he tells us is leaving for Zanzibar the next day, flirts with our FL. She responds to the attention and his childlike recklessness. Their actions lead to making love in an empty building. Thus begins a 24 hour sexual adventure with both parties giving no details about their identities.

This dangerous liaison explores a no holds barred encounter that is liberating because of its finite time. Even when the fiance is confronted with her infidelity we are shown his casual acceptance, hinting at his own acceptance that affairs will occur in a long term marriage.

During their encounter the girl tries to walk away and return to her more rational self, however, the heady excitement of sex with a good looking and willing stranger over rules her and causes her to return each time.

As with most brief fantasies, as the departure time begins to encroach, doubts and longings are experienced by both parties.

Their motives are not explained and perhaps were not fully understood by them either. The ending has a poignancy that is depicted by the drawing of their hands on the park bench.

We are left with the question 'what if' and are free to interpret how we may have handled the affair either as; the stranger, the unfaithful partner or the cuckolded fiance.

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Most annoying action film I've ever watched

Let me start by saying I'm a sucker for these kinda movies. That being said the idea is nothing new but I don't care how many times a similar idea has been executed I'll still watch it and probably find it good.

BUT .... these have to be the most annoying characters (across the board) I've ever watched in an action movie. From the stupidest cops (which to be fair is kind of expected but then they are extremely rude and primitive without any apparent reason) to the lead that is so incompetent that it's beyond pitty and he basically turns into a piece of furniture not even third of the movie in. After suffering with all these annoying characters for the whole movie, the ending in completely bland and unsatisfactory and leaves you feeling angry and cheated.

All in all a big skip and a waste of time.

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"We don't need philosophy. We need a break."

The Warrior's Gate was a clunky but affable wish fulfillment for if not teenage boys, twelve-year-old gamer boys. The movie was reminiscent of The Forbidden Kingdom only without actual martial artists in it and any real danger for the main characters.

A teenaged boy named Jack spends most of his time playing a video game as the Black Knight. His house is about to be foreclosed on which doesn't seem to bother him much. After school he works in an antique shop for Mr. Chang who gifts him a large Chinese basket/box. The next thing Jack knows Warrior Zhao (Mark Chao) and Princess Su Lin (Ni Ni) pop out of it looking for his help thinking he is the great warrior The Black Knight. Jack ends up guiding the English speaking Ni Ni through his world, taking her to the mall. When the bad guys show up to kidnap the princess, Jack has to follow them into the basket which takes him to what is supposed to be ye olden times China. Warrior Zhao and a wizard accompany him to help him free the princess with sword and magic. Along their journey, Jack teaches Zhao to break dance and swim. Dave Bautista plays Arun the Cruel, the Horrible, the Terrible, the Miserable who wants to marry the princess who is to become the Empress giving him the fast track to becoming Emperor.

Uriah Shelton was soft and non-threatening as the fish out of water who became a fighter, wooed a princess, and taught Zhao that he needed to take time to have fun. Mark Chao made for a believable warrior and was able to play the straight man to several jokes. He was so darn sexy and capable that it was hard to accept the Caucasian, timid teenager as being of any use. Before you could say "wax on, wax off", Zhao taught Jack one move in a few minutes and the next thing you knew the kid was capable of taking on battle hardened barbarians. And you knew that when he returned to the present, those bullies would be no problem and he would resolve his mom's financial problems with his mad gaming skills. Ni Ni was largely wasted as the princess though she always lit up the screen when she was on it. Bautista made for a large and properly menacing Arun the Cruel, with a few funny quirks. Francis Ng was fine as the strange Wizard who popped in and out to help the heroes. Kara Hui showed up briefly as a witch to challenge the two heroes on a narrow mountain path.

As a flight of fantasy with a thoroughly likeable cast it was not horrible. It wasn't very good either with cringe worthy humor and suffering from a white savior complex. The overly familiar paradigm was about as creative as white bread. Mark Chao and Ni Ni are such strong performers, it felt almost shameful to focus on the teenage boy. Also, the romance didn't work for me. Uriah was playing a young teenager (he was 19 when this film came out) and Ni Ni was 28. It was hard to see what the princess saw in him. Everyone speaking English was also jarring. Perhaps this film would have worked better as strictly a fantasy and not tried to make it ancient China.

This did not look like a 2016 film, but more like one from the late 1980's or early 1990's. Think Karate Kid crossed with The Forbidden Kingdom. The film must have been aimed at young boys giving them an avatar and showing poor Ni Ni in skimpy clothes. The beautiful princess of course fell in love with the nerdy kid. The inexplicable "romance" was chaste and anemic. There were a few curse words and some mostly bloodless killings if you were thinking of letting a child watch it. For adults there were no surprises in this bland and lackluster movie. It did overestimate how much this viewer could suspend her sense of disbelief on too many occasions. The thoughts that kept me most occupied during this film were ones wishing Mark Chao and Ni Ni would work together again in their own movie or drama with no fish out of water gamer to ruin the illusion.

4/5/23

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Ready your weapons as you dive in to assassins' world

It was such a great movie for me. The story is very interesting and logical. I love how it was portrayed and executed. All the scenes that led to one another makes sense. I felt like I'm watching an outcome of the outcome which means it felt natural. The trivial details is also a part of a bigger picture. The mother-daughter relationship is also relatable.

I love how BokSoon was perfectly casted. She really had that assassin aura and mother aura at the same time which made it more realistic to watch. Although it is a bit far-fetched, I want to see sequel for this movie.

It was an unexpectedly great watch. I haven't seen a movie this good in a while. I just loved it.

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some more, more like WE NEED SOME MORE

It was too short but goodddd. It felt like a summer love that only last less than 3 months, it was sweat, naked, warm, everything. Nothing was wrong with it, the age difference was also alr. We honestly need some more of this, the cast was also very fine.
THAT GRAB WAS PERSONAL. Sex on the beach sure is a concept, well acted. Also the "Long time no see" poster in the box lmao. I was prepared for a sad anding, so glad we didn't get one this time.
The cousing's teasing was cute, he was so real for that one. When he set the question "Would you stay here or the city", i just knew shit was about to get down.

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Keep you phone in bag and not hand.

It's centered around the aspect that mobiles have become way too essential in our lives than imagined. UNLOCKED, is a gripping and thought-provoking movie about being overly invested in smartphones these days. While this is not the first movie to undertake the subject, it did a good job of delivering a realistic wake-up call about the dangers of social media without any sugarcoating.
A woman loses her phone on a bus and her life gets worse as it gets hacked. The plot is simple yet engaging throughout. The plot is predictable cause we see through the eyes of the hacker, about his next movie. But the ending is satisfying, I thought it would be a lot worse but thankfully not.

I loved the movie's cinematography, the camera angles, the relationships between the characters, the depth of the storyline, to the suspenseful moments that made me feel emotions as if I was the one going through it.
This movie should be watched by everyone not just for the thrill of the movie but for most important awareness of how careful you should be with your phones. Not because someone will stalk you with the phone, but because scams and fraud could happen too.

And those of you who believed it is over-exaggeration or unreal, it may be dramatized but I have seen real cases. Better safe than searching for a cure
1. My phone got hacked and lost a few bucks.
2. A girl's laptop was hacked at my university and they could see her through her camera. She later told everyone to put up a sticky note over the camera if not in use.

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calming and mellow film!

I might need to watch this again but it was quite a beautiful film. Each of the piano pieces created such vivid scenery and emersed you into the moment. I also liked how you, the viewer, got to see how much intricate work goes into tuning and fixing pianos. The subject matter should've bored me but it was actually very interesting. You could feel the passion from all the characters, especially the girls whenever they played. It was inspiring in a way.

Although the script was poetic at times, what I took away was more of the nature scenes that accompanied the music. This isn't really plot-driven--not much happens, just a lot of pianos lol. But def watch if you wanna get swept up in the pretty music and lovely imagery of lush green forests.

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"Breaking one arrow is easy, a bundle is not"

A Home with a View is a rather typical Hong Kong comedy with lots of yelling and manic action. What sets it apart is its theme about overcrowded living spaces in the densely populated city and the emotional pressure it puts on the residents crammed into their homes. The overacting and nearly constant yelling could be off-putting, but the story underneath had a current of societal desperation and sinister truth running through it.

The Lo family lives in a crowded apartment which gives them no real privacy. They are paying a large mortgage in order to have a slice of visibility of the harbor. Tempers erupt on a regular basis, but are soothed when the family clusters around the small window and drink in the tiny tranquil view of nature. They live in a building with people as crazy, er, eccentric as themselves. Unaware of their own distracting noise, the mother picks fights with the butcher (Lam Suet) who lives upstairs while the kids yell at the old man below whose tobacco smoke drifts into their apartment at dinner time. While the father seeks peace with the neighbors, sometimes in an overly generous fashion, the rest of the family pretty much finds themselves in conflict with everyone. This is not just a failing on their part, no one around them is looking for harmony with each other either. The contentious Lo family's only pressure valve is threatened when a callous neighbor erects a garish billboard with Karl Maka's face on it obstructing their view.

Wong (Louis Koo), a lonely man who feels unseen, refuses to take down the billboard, relishing the attention. The family runs up against an immovable and uncaring bureaucratic wall of paper. A fight over whether it's art or advertising ensues. Ultimately, the family is found in the right, but the process for removing the hated monstrosity could take years or even decades. They can't even sell their flat as the loss of the harbor view drastically devalued their home. Meanwhile the family is slowly descending into madness without their precious view. The film takes a dark turn as they run out of options and coping mechanisms.

There were some odd scenes thrown into the mix. A truly unique teenage pregnancy scene where it comes to light helping a schoolmate deliver a baby will earn you a demerit. You also would not want to do battle with Mama Lo over a fish in the market. Every element of society seemed on edge in the manmade cement prison.

The family was not alone in its need for something to bring them peace. The offending butcher above found nightly peace in his pork pies. The old man dying of cancer below escaped into his evening smokes and eventually into death. The Lo family dealt with their existential crisis in a decidedly permanent manner. The film explored family and the people struggling daily to survive financially and with their sanity intact in the overcrowded city. The Lo Family united first at their serene window, then in their fight against Wong, and in the end…their madness.

4/4/23

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Amazing.

I feel like a lot of people are disappointed in the ending, but I believe that the ending was what made this drama, likable and realistic.

I originally I saw an edit on TikTok of the last scene which is originally why I wanted to watch it so I feel like I had a giant spoiler right from the beginning but because of the ending I want to watch the entire movie.

I normally I can’t finish the movie, unless I know it’s a really good movie, but I did end up watching this entire movie without getting distracted because of how good it was.

Great acting, good storyline. 100% recommend!

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Kwon Yoo, my favourite anti-hero

It's April 4th, 2023, and this movie is already 5 years old. Why write a review of this film now, then? Simply because I just watched "Fabricated City" again, for the umpteenth time. I've lost count of the number of times I've watched it since its release in 2017, but easily 5 or 6 times I think. That is to say, I love this movie. And I said to myself that it well deserved that I finally give my opinion on it here.

Is it a perfect movie? No, but no movie is really perfect, I think. As with any artistic work, there is a large part of subjective opinion linked to the emotions experienced by the viewer, apart from the intrinsic qualities of an art work. However, from the first time I saw it, "Fabricated City" has always been a 10/10 for me, and I still have so much fun watching it.

I'm not particularly a fan of action movies, although I can enjoy those kinds of movies if I like the main actors or if the story is well put together. In this case, it was because I was already a big fan of Ji Chang Wook that I watched "Fabricated City". But I also remember that I was really interested by it following the movie trailer. As I put it in the title, it is especially for the character of Kwon Yoo, played by Ji Chang Wook, that I like this film. He is, for me, one of the best anti-heroes characters I have seen in a film, Asian, European or American cinemas combined.

I really like the story of "Fabricated City". Nothing very innovative or particularly original, admittedly, themes already seen through other stories, but a logical progression of the story, with good twists, perfectly executed action scenes, a little bit of well dosed humour, suspense as it should be, and above all a very successful start and a coherent plot progression that keeps you intrigued until the end.

For me, the casting is perfect. Very good actors, all consistent in their respective roles, and showing skills and talents. Of course, totally captivated by Ji Chang Wook. I think he was able to perfectly embody Kwon Yoo, who is, as I wrote before, the perfect anti-hero. We can only love and become attached to such a character, I believe. Ji Chang Wook's natural charm does the rest.

The soundtrack is just perfect for the movie. Probably not the best cinematic music around, but it goes perfectly with the movie.

To conclude, therefore, a film to watch, and to watch again without counting, in my opinion (it is clearly the case for me).

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once a watch

Most of the movies about killers/assassinators would be about the revenge of betrayal cause they lose something beloved. KILL BOK SON is different cause the rich have made killing into a business. Drama World can make anything into a high-profile business
and she is an ace worker who wants to quit and focus on parenting. But the company doesn't want to let her go. And the teenage daughter has her own story who eventually opens up and her insecurities, likes, and questions. It is nice to see the mother-daughter talking by the end.

It felt like watching a female replace John Wick, for its more action sequence and light family story. The many probabilities of the fight scene flowing in the head of Bok Son were nice but that created confusion in the end. She always thinks ahead which actually doesn't happen but it's represented in front of the camera so it feels real.

I don't like the minors kissing scene. was that necessary for to camera shoot, it could have been angled. maybe I am freaking out but yeah I am. This scene ruined my mood to rewatch it.

It is not boring but not excellent to make me want a rewatch it.

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Still action-filled less comedy and now a trio

The story is completely different from the first movie so if you can watch it even without the prequel. Pretty much the same premise where North Korea is trying to apprehend a criminal and launches a joint investigation with South Korea then FBI also comes in the picture. Then we still have the NIS poking around again to find out what is NK really up to.

There's still those doubts among each other at first but in the end they got each other's back. There's also that attempt to add a love line on the story but I find that detail a little trivial. The story will go on without it. The chemistry among the leads is a bit different since it's a trio now, it kind of meh for me. The balance of good-looking and not-so-good looking has been kind of disrupted.

Still this was a great movie to watch on a weekend filled with action but not so with the comedy part. It was still an epic movie and I love it. You should watch it too.

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what could have been

It's just a simple story that probably happened to millions of people on the planet, but it manages to make my heart aches. Wondering the what could have been or regretting things that have been done. IMHO, The way they pictured a coloured world when they were together and a colorless scene when they are not together, it's a very nice touch. The last scene with the dad's letter is also making my heart aches. Last, the scenes when they are crying and laughing in the car wondering and regretting what could have been, what should have been and the if only scenarios, it's just perfection. Good acting from both of the leads too.

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THEY DON'T MAKE EM LIKE THIS ANYMORE !!

They don't make movies like this anymore.
This is a rare gem.
It appeals to you in every manner right from the get-go.
The story is simple, but the way it has been presented, acted and directed is mind-blowing.

The chemistry is too good to be true.
There's a breeze of authenticity to everything this movie has.
The casting was spot on.
Watching Cho Seung Woo as a young naive boy was so much fun.
Similar for Soo Ye Jin, she pulled it off amazingly.

Overall, I totally loved the first 100 mins of the movie but the last 20 mins are where the problem lies.
It was messy, not needed and could've been written in a much better way.
The last 20 mins disconnect from the whole idea and the smoothness with which the movie proceeded till that point.
It leaves us with a bitter taste in the mouth when it ends coz it's too far-fetched from what started as a simple story.
That is not to say it wasn't good, but when you've honey in your mouth, eating a spoon of sugared jam doesn't sit well with the taste.

The BGMs were effective, and the songs were miraculous especially the folk dance scene.
Aww, I just love this movie.

Truly a Classic.

While watching it, I pondered why it's named ' the classic ' , thinking it was a ridiculous name for such a movie.
But by the end, I realized why it was named so.






SPOILER AHEAD:

It's named the classic, coz it's a classic love/ romance story where the ML and FML try to fight against the moral and social odds, and still don't end up together.
Hence the name 'the classic'.
Kinda cool, right?

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A Realistic View

I find this story very sad. The emprises has no say in her marriage to the emperor. He is gay and does not touch a women but send his men to sleep with her because he needs an heir. She has no say in the emperors order and summits to his request. She falls for the first guard and he falls for her after he has been sleeping with the emperor. The emperor get jealous because he is in love with the guard. the emperor jealousy ends his rain on the kingdoms. It is a realistic view of what the past could have been. I have to say I cry especially at the end. The performance of these actors was great. A great story.

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