Nasi Lemak 2.0

Finally I had managed to watched this very movie which caused so much buzz lately in the cinema. Not it's not Johnny English. It's our own local production called Nasi Lemak 2.0. The movie is directed by non other than the controversial blogger Namwee. I wasn't sure if I wanna watch this movie in the first place but I had a few good response from my friends for the movie and decided to watched it before it was taken down. Damn, booking the ticket itself was damn hard. Almost all the halls are full each day. Even the midnight shows. Finally managed to get some tickets over the new MBO at Subang Parade. 

The movie features a lot of local celebrities like Adibah Noor, comedian Afdlin Shauki, singer Reshmonu, violinist Dennis Lau, local singer Karen Kong, ex-DJ cum blogger Pete Teoh and some veteran actor and singers like Dato' David Arumugam (Alleycats) and Kenny & Chee (babba & nyoya) and lastly Miss Malaysia herself Nadine Ann Thomas. The movie focus on Namwee as Chef Huang who acts like a savior to the neighborhood after being saved by someone when he was young. He and Kak Noor (Adibah Noor) are like fire and water as the latter sells nasi lemak at her stall opposite his restaurant and was doing very well. Xiao K (Karen) came over to seek Chef Huang help to save her family restaurant and this embarks the journey of Chef Huang and Xiao K. 

Along the way they meet with Baba & Nyonya (Chee & Kenny) who teaches Chef Huang how to cook real sambal. Then they went to meet Curry Master (David Arumugam) who only speaks Tamil to learn about spices. Finally they meet with Hero Resh (Reshmonu) and also fisherman (Afdlin Shauki) who has four beautiful wifes and kids. Finally Chef Huang has a final showdown with his former classmate, Lan Qiao (Dennis Lau). OK, maybe the story line isn't that solid but heck it's a movie about our country and the best part is that we can really relate to all of the stuff from the movie in our daily life. Take for instance, electricity being cut off without any warning, how cold our local car's air cond is and how the power window stop working after 2 years. There are a lot of remarks made towards the government but it's all very true. 

It talks about unity and the spirit of 1Malaysia in the movie. How 3 different races work together to achieve peaceful harmonious living. The director did take some shots on some issues like the Lingam case and also the pornographic sex scandal case by one of our local chief. I think, only us Malaysian can truly understand and feel the whole movie is all about. I don't think anyone like Hong Kong or even Singaporean understand some of the jokes being made in the movie. Unless you really do follow Malaysia news a lot. Lastly, the movie does gave me a lot of laugh and something to ponder on. If there's a chance, I would watch it a second time. haha~! Walao Eh Walao Eh Walao Eh~!!!! 

Is This Your Final Destination?

Recently I had just finished another long run movie after Harry Potter (8 Episodes), Planet of The Apes (6 Episodes) and now Final Destination franchise. Gosh~! How many times do they really have to get kill? Well anyway, we can't blame Death for making his job a bit interesting now, can we? The first franchise started from the year 2000. It tells a group of teenagers who cheated death as one of them had a premonition thingy before the actual thing happens. So the group of teenagers and adults left the Flight 180 before it explodes into flames. But as they all said, you can't cheat Death. So one by one is being killed/died with accordance with the way they were supposed to die in the initial plan.

This first episode gave us all a very good and suspense feeling of death and what is reflects on our real life. I mean, every little thing that we do might lead to our own death or some one else. How cool in a twisted sick way I might say. But the way the director, James Wong lead the audience gripping on their seats on how the person is going to die was just awesome. So at the end no one survived except Ali Larter which come back on the second franchise. Highlight death would be Sean William Scott being decapitated by the metal plate flung off from a passing train. Cool~! 

The second episode comes 3 years after the first. Since they thought they can make some really big money of out how people die. Well, death do sells. So the second part of the movie tells of a bunch of people got save from a freak Highway 180 accident. Trust me, it's really out of the world. So this bunch of people started to die one by one just like the initial movie. But some one gave  them an idea on how to prevent death is by creating another life. Well some bullshit bout balance of life where a life will eliminate off a death mumbo jumbo. OK, here's the interesting part of the movie, they found bout the plane accident (Part 1) and the people on board are related to them one way the other. 

Hence, them (people from Part 1) who were saved from the initial plane crash had created a chain of event which resulted the people in this movie to be still alive and death is not happy about that. But at the end, everyone's dead. As they said, no one cheat death TWICE. Highlight death moment would be the guy being cut in many piece by the barb wires. Wicked~!

The third installment come 3 years later in 2006. This time around, a bunch of teenagers (yes, it always revolves around young people) who went for a roller coaster ride called High Dive and survived yet another freak accident. I think Death is slacking off his job by now. So the survivors did some research online and found out that there are similar cases (plane crash and road accident) where the people who survived those accidents, die one by one after that. So they had decided to fight against their fate and at the end 3 of them survived. But not for long as after 5 months after they all goes their separate ways, they some how bump into each other in a subway. One of them saw the number 081 (in reflection of 180 which is also the same flight number on the plane crash in Episode 1). She had a premonition again but this time it's just few second a head so they didn't have enough time to save themselves. At the end, all of them die. Highlight of the movie would be one guy being penetrated by a flag pole. I mean, how bizarre can it get? 

This movie came 3 years later (I think it's a trend) in 2009. This time, Death comes in 3D. Yup, the movie jump into the 3D bandwagon. The movie focuses on a bunch of audience from McKinley Speedway who had, Yes you got it, survived another bizarre freak accident. Crush to death by a spun off tyres out side the stadium? I mean, death really wanted her to die so badly. But at least, Death is getting more creative after the 3rd installment. Again, they thought that they can cheat death again by skipping an accident on their own life but heck they are wrong. This is the part where the 3 left survivors who get together in a cafe to celebrate their victory against Death's plan. At that point, the main actor had another premonition about Death's coming plan and realized that all that had happened after McKinley Speedway and all the other death is actually a red herring from Death to bring them all together for a final showdown. No money for guessing who won at the end. 

Now, after 2 years, in 2011 Final Destination 5 had reached the 5th installment. I assumed this is the last but we never know. It all depends on the box office I guess. If the cinema goers still like it and would pay for more, why not? The story tells of a company retreat went wrong when the suspension bridge which their bus is on decided to give way, due to strong winds. An idiot would know that Death got something to do with it. Well, the main actor had a premonition and pulled his colleagues off the bus before it plum to the  sea. And you know what that does to Death's reputation by now. It's a big No No. So one by one of them die in some freaky horrifying ways. OK, sometimes, the director did get too creative especially how the gymnast fell to death after some freak accident during practice. 

In this episode, the coroner (same guy from all the episodes, which brought us to believe he is Death himself) gave them some light on how to save their life. They need to kill someone innocent or not meant to die in order to skip the death toll on themselves. One particular funny moment would be the guy visited the spa and the conversation he had with the Chinese masseur. Anyway, three of the survivors left (why is it always three?) and the couple finally managed to board the plane for their trip over to Paris. Now here's the catch, when I saw the date of the ticket, which is dated in the year 2000 and the tickets read Flight 180, I know what is going on. Some teenage kids got kick off the plane right before taking off since he had a premonition that the plane is going to explode in mid air. Yes, it's the same flight 180 from the first movie. So both of them die and the most outrageous part would be the third person who survived got killed by the fallen parts from Flight 180 WHILE DRINKING IN A BAR!!!. I mean, how ironic can that be? Death really have some really sick sense of humor. hahaha! 

Planet of The Apes .... The Complete Episode

After watching the The Rise of Planet of The Apes few weeks back. I was really amazed how much the digital world had improved. For me both have their own advantage. I walked in the cinema with high expectation since I heard great reviews from the media. And at the end, I walked out the cinema full of praises on the movie. The star of the movie would be Caesar of course. I think everyone will agree with me on that. It tells the story of a Dr. Will Rodman (James Franco) trying to find a cure for Alzheimer. He uses apes to try on the "cure" and  unknown to him that  the "cure" enhanced  the brain functionality of the apes. The first ape was name "Bright Eyes" (it's the same name Dr. Zira from Planet of The Apes from the 1968 movie gave the astronaut, Tylor). 

Cut story short, Bright Eyes gave birth to Caesar (you will hear this name again on the 3rd installment of the episode) who in turn freed all the apes and bring his kind to a revolution. Hence the tagline of the movie, Evolution becomes Revolution. After watching the movie I was really tempted to re-watched the original 1968 movie again. Yup, I'd watched all the 5 episodes since I was really young. And so I did. 

The 1968 movie stared Charlton Heston (he's like George Clooney of our time). It tells of an astronaut, Taylor who crashed landed on a planet after going through a worm hole. The year written on the ship is 3950. He believe that it's another dimension or planet when he discovered that the planet is inhibit by talking apes and humans are being hunted for sport and used as test rat like we so did in our time. Human can't talk in the future and during a freak shoot out, Taylor throat was hurt and he wasn't able to speak. During that  time he meet Dr. Zila and her husband Cornelius. The apes go crazy when they discovered that Taylor can speak and decided to dissect him and experiment on him (just like we human will do if we found a talking ape). But Dr.Zila & Cornelius help Taylor escaped to the forbidden zone. There he discovered the ultimate truth of the human race. The planet is actually earth some 2000 years in the future. The story ends with Taylor discovering the Statue of Liberty as in the movie poster. Cool~! 

The second installment came two years later in 1970 starring James Franciscus as Brent the astronaut from Taylor's time coming in search of the latter. Taylor was ventured into the forbidden zone together with Nova and went missing. Brent discovered Nova and was brought to the Ape City where they meet Dr.Zila and Cornelius. They were caught and was being sent for target practice. They managed to escape with the help of Dr.Zila and Cornelius and decided to venture into the forbidden zone in search of Taylor. There, Brent found the New York subway and know of the fate of the human race. There they encountered mutated human with mental powers which captured Taylor. The gorillas decided to venture into the forbidden land in search of them and at the end battle with the human over there. Brent, Nova and Taylor was killed at the end but before Taylor died, he had activated the doomsday bomb and everything on the face of the earth was annihilated.  

The third installment came a year after that in the year 1971. It continues with Dr.Zila, Cornelius and Dr. Milo landed on Earth several years after Brent and Taylor went missing. Three of them salvaged the space ship from Taylor's crash site and managed to repair and flew off in time watching the future earth being wiped out from the doomsday bomb activated by Taylor. Dr.Milo was killed by a gorilla in the zoo (ironically) while Dr.Zila and Cornelius is being treated like honored guest when humans found out that they can actually speak. But a certain Dr. Otto found out about the down fall of the human race and destruction of the earth in the future and decided to stop at all cost the birth of Dr.Zila's son. Yup, the baby was born at the end and was name Baby Milo (in memory of Dr.Milo). And yes, this is how the brand Bape (Bathing Ape) came alive. Both the parents died at the end while leaving Baby Milo to Armando of the circus. 

After 20 years of the killing of Dr. Zila and Cornelius, Baby Milo grew up and name Caesar (I don't know why). The world as told by Dr.Zila previously had used apes as household pets replacing cats and dogs. Cats and dogs in the world died of an infection several years back and human decided to train apes to be their pets and subsequently slaves to do their works. Caesar shouted "lousy human bastards" when he saw some guard mistreated an ape. Armando gave himself up but Governor Breck & Capt Kopl didn't believe him as they believe that the child from Dr.Zila still lives. At the end Armando died and when Caesar found out about this, he had finally had enough and decided to raise up together with the other apes and take back their freedom. As he believe that freedom can only be achieve with power. At the end of  the movie, the city burn down in rubble  and Caesar walk off together with Lisa, her partner. 

Finally the last installment of the movie. I am a bit confused of the time line but I will try to explain as much as I can. The movie starts off with some introduction of The Great Lawgiver in the early 21st century (if I am not mistaken). He tells the history of the ape king, Caesar after a decade of the ape revolution and the downfall of human race. Caesar tried to find a place where human and ape can live in harmony. Human are still not equal yet and are being watched by apes at that time. Human are teaching apes how to write and read. Ape Shall Never Kill Ape (the same tagline from Bape line of clothing) is the oldest and sacred rule of the apes. With the help of MacDonald (the descendant of the assistant of Governor Breck) and Virgil, they managed to obtained the footage of  Caesar's parents trial and got to know some part of the future. 

The descendant of Capt Kopl is now the so-called leader of the inhabitant of the waste land once called New York city. They discovered the ape city and decided to destroy it once and for all. General Aldo gorilla head decided to kill all the humans and even Caesar if he tries to stop him and accidentally overheard by Cornelius (Caesar's son) and killed him. The human led by Kopl attacked the city but was defeated at the end. The remaining of the soldiers decided to activate the doomsday bomb but at the end called it off. Caesar believe that the future can be change depending on how the ape and people can learn to co-exist with each another. And that is how the movie ends with the Great Lawgiver looking upon the human kids playing with the apes. 

Great Day

Finally I'd watched the much hyped pre-CNY movie from our local production house. If you haven't heard of the movie before then you definitely not living in Malaysia, trust me. MyFm had been advertising about this movie even before it was shown in the cinema. Tian Tian Hao Tian or Great Day for those who doesn't read Chinese (like me). The movie as mentioned is Astro's second baby since last years success, Woo Hoo. Since I watched the movie in DVD last year and was quite satisfied with it, I had decided to give this year's movie a go in the big screen instead. Every morning, the DJs would boost that the cinemas are always sold out and so on and forth. But luckily my friend managed to secure tickets for the movie on a Wednesday night. And so they say the rest is history. 

Great Day basically is not just all laugh but instead slotted in a lot of messages and advice which reflect on our real life. It tells of filial to our parents and how people nowadays treat their old ones at home. The scenario are basically real life and I think everyone in the cinema would be able to connect with the characters as we all heard or at least been into that situation before or going to. The story starts with two old man who lived in an old folks house over at Perlis. Both boosted how filial and successful are their sibling and one of them challenged the other to sneak out off the house and meet their children. But only one managed to do so. He sneak into the back of the truck of Ah Hock (played by Jack Lim) who is a filial son living with his son and mother who is struck by Alzheimer. 

I am not going into details what happened and how's the ending would be as I am sure you need to watch it yourself to really judge how good it is. Yes, you heard me right, it's really good. Even better than Woo Hoo last year. At least this story has story line and a strong message and topic to address to the viewers. It's not just all laugh and leaving the cinema with a smile in your face but rather a question of how filial are you to your parents. I think my friends managed to connect with the movie since the ladies managed to shed some tears in the movie while I am still trying hard to get myself into the mood but at the end didn't shed any tears. No I am not cold hearted. It just that they need to work harder to get me to cry anyway. I am easily moved mind you. 

Highly recommended for the CNY season now. Bring your families, bring your friends, bring your love ones and watch it together and feel the warmth and love oozing out. haha! The radio is a bit over selling the movie for me but still the movie is a really good one and improved a lot from the first. In terms of story line and it's main issue to send to the viewers, it's spot on. I am brave to say that this movie is on par with our neighbor's country movie any other day. At least it gives them a run for their money now. (Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0)

The Green Hornet in 3D

Finally I'd watched The Green Hornet last week. Is it good? Well let's just say that it's way cooler than the original one for sure. But you can't really compare the original 60s starring the legendary Bruce Lee and Van Williams in the TV series. The new Hornet stars comedian Seth Rogen as the playboy publisher Britt Reid and Jay Chou as his partner Kato. The movie tells how the Green Hornet come about. Britt Reid is a spoil guy who waste his youth on booze and women all his life. And when his father sudden death brought him back to life, he was introduced to Kato. Kato is hired by his late father to take care of their automobiles. And also taking care of both the father & son's morning coffee. 

So one night, they decided to cut off the head of the statue of his dad, Britt came about on a robbery and with Kato's super kick ass martial arts, they managed to save the day (or rather night). And from that night onwards, Britt had an idea of protecting the city from the villains. How? By posing as villain themselves of course. Why? Cause this way, no one know that they are the good guys and they can get close to the villains. Yes, it's a bit crazy but that's him. So they embark on this adventure where Kato started creating new gadgets like the fart guy. Damn I can't stop laughing when Kato told Britt that he was off for a week after shooting the gun at himself. And of course, the Black Beauty, which Kato build. Black Beauty is of course the cool cool ride that The Green Hornet rides. 

The story line isn't that strong with a lot of slap sticks jokes here and there, but I can live with that. I have not much high expectation for the movie except plenty of jokes from Seth in the movie. You can't really compare the original ones with this as it's totally different in terms of story line and the direction of the movie is going. I mean, it's a hero fighting with villains and having fun in between. It's a funny movie to watch on a weekend and not much thinking needed for the movie. Try to maximize your experience by watching it in 3D. Since the effects are so cool. (Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0)

Paranormal Activity 2

I read about the review for this movie beforehand from the newspaper and it wasn't as good as I thought it would be. But nevertheless, as I always said, don't believe everything you read in the paper. So I made a trip over to the  nearest cinema with some friends to give it a go. There's always some criteria for me for watching a good horror/scary movie. First it got to be a midnight show or at least something that will bring you to midnight after watching it. No point watching a horror show in the afternoon right? Secondly, get somebody who really watch it and not closing the eyes most of the time during the movie. At least we can discuss bout it after the movie ends. Lastly, watch it in a cinema and not the leisure of your home. Well unless you got a freaking good sound system at home that is. Cause for most of the time, it's the sound effect which gives your those sudden scare.

So what does the sequel has to install for us. Please do not read through if you're gonna watch it as it contains spoilers which might spoil the fun of the whole movie. The sequel of the movie actually explains what happen 60 days before the first installment. So if you have any questions like how the hell it all started and why is Katie's picture was found in the attic, well here's the answer to all your queries. The story revolves around Kristi's sister Katie who just gave birth to a baby boy name Hunter. Strange things starts to happens when they returned home from the hospitals. Strange noise from the kitchen, shadows and others like the mysterious walking pool cleaner. 

The movie started off slow and started picking up momentum towards the end with some really good frights. Sound again plays a major crucial part in any horror movie and this is nothing less than that. Loud sudden thump sound or cabinets springing out all at once and pans falling downs are some of the good effects in the movie which gave the audience some really good experience. Apart from the first movie which focuses more on hand held camera which at some point seemed a bit lost and dizzy, the sequels has a better way of showing it. It's from surveillance camera and I do like the last part where the husband uses night vision camera to search in the basement for Kristie. Damn that is some good shots.

Overall, the movie is definitely better than the first. Well for me and my friends of course. I am not sure about the rest of you but I did enjoyed this second installment. Haven't had any good scary movie for a while now and this is one of the best they have to offer since the first part. Definitely worth a watch even you didn't watch the first episode. But you do get a bit confuse towards the end when you saw Katie if you didn't watch the first though. And again, this is not a real story. So don't ask me if it's really happen or not. It's just make to look as real with our life as possible. Again the movie shows that we do not need high budget movie with big cast to have some really good horror movie. (Rating: 4 out of 5)

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World

I saw the preview of the movie few months back in the cinema and I had to say it's really interesting. I had to watch this movie. Finally I managed to watch the movie today and I totally love it. It might not be the best action movie I watched late like RED or A-Team but heck it brings a new meaning to teenager's love movies. The story tells of Scott Pilgrim who dates a high schooler, Knives Chau. He is playing in a band with his friends whom one of them is his ex. The story gets interesting when he meet up with his latest ex-gf, who is the lead singer of another famous band meet. But he found his true love when he meet a new girl in town, Ramona Flowers.

He managed to break off with Knives and be together with Ramona. But the thing is that, he need to get pass Ramona's 7 exes. Well, you thought how hard can that be? Trust me, they are all some crazy guys and even one chick. You know that this movie is gonna make you laugh really hard since the director, Edgar Wright brought us Shaun of The Dead and Hot Fuzz. Yes, I watched both that movie and I guess not everyone seen or heard of it before. But trust me, it's damn hilarious. It's another boy meets girl and breaks up with her and meet another girl who had 7 exes trying to kill you. Add that to some really cool special effects and for those who really like PC games, this is your cup of tea. (Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0)

Reign of Assassins

I was quite skeptical bout this movie and it doesn't really into my 'must watch' list of movies this season. But since I heard some occasional 'OKs' from some friends, I'd decided to give it a try. Well I didn't went to the cinema to watch it first of all. I don't have to tell you how I got the movie but just gonna leave it to you all to guess. Anyway, the movie is directed by one of Hong Kong finest action director, John Woo. Set in ancient China, which tells the story of a famous monk who was the master of the martial art world. He died finally of old age and his remains are stolen by some unknown people who later separated it into two halves. It is believe that whoever possesses the whole remain of the monk would be able to be the master of the martial art world.

There is a group called The Dark Stone, an underground society which sent 3 of his assassins, Xi Yu (Kelly Lin), Lei Bin (Shawn Yue) and Lian Sheng (Leon Dai) to get one of the remains. Xi Yu decided to get away with the remains which resulted in the pursuit of Cao Feng (Wang Xu Qie) a.k.a King of Dharma Wheel. Xi Fu later decided to change her face and start a new life without having to hide for the rest of her life. He meet with a nice guy name Jiang-A-Sheng (Jung Woo-Sung). But during one time, she has no choice but to reveal her martial skills and later alerted The Dark Stone. Enough for now, I am not going to spoil the whole movie for you, you can go and watch it to know what is the ending like. 

The movie seemed like Face Off to me at some point, having the same idea of changing faces and personality but at the end fate had the better of it and someone had to sacrifice for what they believe and love. This is your typical martial art (Wu Xia) movie but I like it particularly of it's plot and also the pace of the movie. The movie is not all slash and chop but rather tells the story of how two peoples life got change of what happen in the past which may result in a tragic future. And how they overcome it at the end of the day. As usual, you can see John Woo's trademark in the whole movie if you are a fan of his past movies. Overall, I am really pleased with the whole movie and wouldn't mind introducing it to a friend to watch. Well maybe no in the big screen but who knows. (Rating: 3.8 out of 5.0) 

The Child's Eye - 3D

 It's been a while since I last watched a really good horror/ghost movie. The last would be a suspense thriller called The Shelter maybe. Then come this movie which I heard about from the radio and friends about. This is another movie directed by the in-famous Pang Brothers who brought us The Eye, The Eye 2, Recycle and The Eye 10. This time around, they brought us another type of horror called The Child's Eye. All their movies revolves around 'eyes'. Chinese believes that small children and dogs could easily see the paranormal.  So the movie tells of a bunch of friends who traveled to Thailand for a vacation. During the riot over there, 6 of them are stranded and are force to stay in a run down hotel. 

Rainie (Rainie Yang) first spotted something was amidst when 3 children and a dog looked at them like they saw a ghost. The guys disappeared and the girls are force to look for them and Rainie are believe they are in the hotel being held by a women ghost. One by one of them are going missing and at the end it left Rainie and the dog to save the day. She suspect that the owner (Lam Ka Tung) had something to do with the disappearance of her friends. Not gonna go into details what happened at the end but I am just a bit lost with the ending.

I'd decided to watched it in it's true glory which is in 3D. Well, at least I could say that there are some moments which really worth the additional RM5 for those 3D-glasses. I still felt that The Eye gave me the best shock among all their movies. But again those additional special effect did help on some cheap thrill. Go and watch it and let me know what you felt. (Rating: 4 out of 5)

The Legend of The Fist : The Return of Chen Zhen

Donnie Yen is back this time as the legendary Chen Zhen. For those who is not familiar with this name, I am a bit disappointed, but anyhow, not everyone is a Kung Fu flick fan like I am. Anyway, Chen Zhen become famous after it was first played by the legendary Bruce Lee back in 1972. After that famous movie, many had remake the movie namely Jet Li and now Donnie Yen. The original movie tells of Chen Zhen who came back from Japan after his studies to his martial art school, Jing Wu. His master Huo Yuan Jia was killed in a duel with the Japanese due to some evil plot. Chen avenged his master's death by winning a duel with the same guy and he is sentenced to death. At the end of the movie, he jumped out from the door and later being shot by the Japs. This is where the new movie takes off. 

Chen didn't die at the end as he was being replaced by someone else. He fled to France as most of the Chinese had allied with the other countries to fight the German during the first World War. He survived together with some of his comrades and swear that they will fight against the Japanese who is their real enemy back in China. But he can't go back as Chen Zhen as everyone had already assumed he's dead. So he went back as his comrade who had died in the war. In Shanghai he befriend with the owner of Casablanca night club, Liu Yiutian (Anthony Wong). 

One of the best scene would be Chen donning an all black suit with a mask which resembles the Green Hornet's character played by the late Bruce Lee. That fighting scene was so damn good. Another scene would be the one at the end of the movie where Chen wore an all white shirt fighting 20 over Japanese soldiers in the dojo. Damn it was so intense. I am not sure it's the air cond or that scene was so tense that I was shivering. Not going to spoil the movie for you, so go watch it. So who is Donnie gonna play in the future as I think most of the people already been played by him or Jet Li by now. (Rating: 4.2 out of 5.0)

Inception

Finally I watched the movie last night. To be frank, I wasn't that interested in watching it when I saw the trailer early of the year. Reason is, I don't really know what the trailer was all about. But one thing for sure, it's damn cool seeing the whole city being bend and flip over. After a long wait, finally it's being shown and I don't have the time to watched it till yesterday. Read bout the review and all the friends feedback are good. So the rest is history as they said it. 

The movie tells of a group of people who could enter your dream and steal your deepest secret. The team is being lead by Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his friend Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Both of them tried to steal something from Saito (Ken Watanabe) but failed and is being chased by the people who hired them in the first place. Saito decided to offer Cobb a way out if he decided to help him out with something. The plan is to plan an idea into another person's mind, hence Inception. But it's never been done, at least successfully or known till now. So he assembled a team which consists of Eames (Tom Hardy), Ariadne (Ellen Page) and Yusuf (Dileep Rao). Each of them specialized in their own field and everything is ready. Their target would be Robert Fischer (Cilian Murphy), who is going to inherit his father's fortune and Saito need him to dissolved the company's assets.

The plan is simple, now to execute it. I am not going to tell you what is the ending or how good the movie is going to be. But take my word that it's a brilliant movie. There are a lot of parts which I really like, particular the idea of us dreaming and waking up only to realize that we're still in a dream. But this is just the surface of it. What happened if you can't differentiate what is real and what is not? What happened when you are more happy to live in your dream rather than the reality? Will you stay in it? Or will you wake up from it? The best scene in the movie would be the fighting scene between Arthur and the bad guys with the rotating hallway. Totally cool. X-Men-First Class had to scrapped one part of their movie from the board as it's similar to this. For me, this is definitely a MUST WATCH. I can watch it another time or two if someone is buying. (Rating: 4.5 out of 5.0)

The Last Airbender 3D

Finally it's the night I had been waiting for. Finally I managed to catch The Last Airbender in 3D tonight. I had been talking bout this movie since early of the year and finally it's here. I had purposely bought the box set for the anime and watched it few months back just to recapture the hype of the whole Avatar thingy. I bought the tickets since last Firday and I got some really nice seats right in the middle of the cinema. For those who never heard of the movie before, well let me introduce you a bit of the whole Airbender phenomenon. 

The story tells of a world divided into four nations, Water Tribe, Earth Kingdom, Fire Nation and Air Nomad. They all lived in harmony with each another with an Avatar who is born each time under one of the nation. The avatar has the ability of the four tribes and able to communicate with the spirit world and hence able to maintain peace all this while. Until one day, the avatar disappear for a hundred year. The fire nation took the opportunity and tried to take over the other tribes. They wiped out the whole Air Nomad as they know that the next Avatar would be born under this nation. One day, two Northern Water Tribe siblings, stumbled upon a kid in an ice berg and accidently released him. The two siblings, Katara & Sokka befriend with Aang the Avatar and decided to joined him in his journey to all the other nations to find him a master to learn all the other bending. 

This movie only tells the story from the first of four books, which is the Water Book. For me the story seemed a bit rush but I can't blamed them since they are packing the whole season into one movie. But they did put in all the best part in this movie. The actors that acted in the movie are quite similar with the ones in the anime. I am really impressed in this. But the movie lacked the comedic and funny side of the characters. Aang should be more funnier and childish in the anime but Noah Ringer who played Aang seemed a bit quiet and serious most of the time. Even Sokka's bad jokes couldn't be found in any part of this movie. Nicola Peltz who played Katara also seemed like a good choice with her sweet face but again without the hard headed attitude here. Dev Patel who played the banished Prince Zuko is one of the best character here. He hates everyone and that's it. 

The whole movie seemed a bit dark too me and a bit gloomy too. It should be more funnier and comedic but maybe the director, M. Night Shyamalan worried it would seemed like a kid's movie if there's too much of those element in the movie. But heck, it was supposed to be a kid show. I like what they did with Appa (the flying bison) and also Momo (the flying lemur). But they should have more Momo in the movie as he always sticks around Aang most of the time and also Appa too. Not sure if they are coming out with the second book or not. But I hope they do cause I wanted to see more of Aang and the rest of the casts. And why did they pronounced his name that way? I thought it should sound like 'Eng' in the anime although it's spelt Aang.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

I am still deciding whether to watch this movie or not when MD called me up and invited me to watched it last night. Well, there goes my doubt. Before I know it, I am queuing up at the cinema already. I first saw the preview few months back and my first thought was, cool special effects. The movie tells of 3 apprentice of Merlin, the most powerful sorcerer in the world. They are Balthazar Blake (Nicholas Cage), Veronica (Monica Bellucci) and Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina). Merlin was killed by Morgana le Fay (Alice Krige) as he's being betrayed by Maxim. Veronica sacrifice herself by trapping Morgana inside herself and Balthazar had no choice but to keep both of them inside a Grimhold. Maxim is too being jail in the Grimhold for a thousand years while Balthazar finds the Prime Merlinian, Merlin's successor. 

A thousand year pass, and the Prime Merlinian is a guy name Dave (Jay Baruchel) who is a Physic  freak. Dave accidently freed Maxim who later got a hold of the Grimhold and freeing the Morgana one by one until the last one. In the mean time, Balthazar decided to take Dave under his wing as his apprentice when he found out that the latter is the Prime Merlinian. Final showdown at Battery Park where all the sorcerers throw out all their cards and a good showdown took place. The movie is close to 2 hours and I didn't even realize it. I had fun watching the movie although it's not the best I watched but still worth the money and time. Jay Baruchel is funny as he is in She's Out of My League. Nicholas Cage acting is good as always and you can't go wrong with a Disney movie can we? Enjoy~ !(Rating: 4 out of 5)

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Why am I posting review for a chick flick? Well, as I mentioned previously on my review in New Moon, the movie gets better with each episode and not so much on the mushy stuff. The third installment of the Twilight Saga is called, Eclipse. The movie takes off where it left in New Moon. Bella "indecisive" Swan (Kristen Stewart) continues her relationship with Edward "super pale" Cullen (Robert Pattinson) after surviving the trial with the Volturi. Jacob "boy on steroid" Black (Taylor Lautner) began to stay away from Bella after the meet in the forest but the latter still hold some feelings for him even though she doesn't admits it.

In another place, Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) is gathering new bloods or vampires as armies to eliminates the Cullen's clan. The clan is lead by a guy name Riley (Xavier Samuel) who is being manipulated by Victoria to kill the Cullen's clan. The Volturi, lead by Jane (Dakota Fanning) know about this but didn't do anything to stop them. This time around, the movie also tells more of the story behind Alice, Jasper and Rosaline of the Cullen families. It also tells the legend behind the werewolf clan and how it started the war with the vampires.

I'll let you watch the ending and trust me there's plenty of drama and funny scenes too in the movie. For instance, I was laughing hard during one scene where Bella and Edward came out from their car to meet Jacob who is standing by his car topless (showing his 6 packs AGAIN!). And Edward goes, "Doesn't he has a shirt to wear?" I'd always wanted to ask that question since New Moon. I will let you watch it by yourself and decide if it's a good movie or not. (Rating: 4 out of 5)

The Karate Kid

I know that the movie is not a new one and had been in the cinema for quite some time but I just don't have the time to watch it these days. Finally I decided to watched it last weekend with my gym mates. I am contemplating whether to watch The Karate Kid or A-Team and decided to go with the first one since it's recommended by my friends. And it's not as bad as I thought. Since it's a remake of the original 1984 with the same title, I am not giving it so much expectation. The movie is more than 2 hours and I can say that I did enjoyed the whole 2 hours of it. Since I had watched the original movie a few times so the story line, plot and even some of the lines are the same. 

The movie started off with a kid called Dre (Jaden Smith, son of Will Smith) who moved from Detroit with his mom Sherry Parker (Taraji Henson) to China. As always new kid on the block fall in love with the sweet china doll, Mei Ying and got himself into a fight on the first day they arrive. Dre started being bullied around by the local kid called Cheng. So he blamed his mother for bringing him over to this alien place where he got no friends and being bullied all the time. So during one confrontation with Cheng and his posse, Dre is save by Mr. Han (Jacky Chan) the janitor. He decided to teach Dre Kung Fu as he believe that Dre need to face them in a tournament so that they will stop bullying him. So the story tells how he is train and how he eventually kick Cheng's ass. 

The whole plot is exactly the same as the original one but the first moved to Los Angeles and being bullied by the school bullies. Even the part where the master of the bad guys shouted the same line. It's not half bad seeing movie but if you watched the original movie, it's a bit deja vu for me. Jaden Smith gave a good performance in the movie and Jacky as always being himself with the witty moves and all (typical). It's a nice movie to watch and don't expect anything spectacular in the movie but just enjoy where the movie takes you. (Rating: 4 out of 5)

The Legend is Born - Ip Man

This is the third installment of the most talked about Kung Fu movie these pass few years. The legend is born, Ip Man. As the name goes, the story actually tells how Ip Man get started off learning Wing Chun and how he was the man he is in the first and second installment. I think most of us had guess that someone would have made a movie of how he got started off in beginning and here it is. Typical Hong Kong style film making but we all go for it. I got free tickets for the sneak preview, so it's still alright for me. Anyway, most of the cast are familiar faces from the first and second movie except for Donnie Yen. I heard it's because of the money issue (again!) but it's logical that they find a younger man to play him as this part of the story starts off when he is still a teenager. 

The main actor who played Ip Man is Dennis To. You could recognize that face from the first and second movie if you really look carefully. Yes, he's Sammo Hung's disciple with the mustache in the second part. Go and guess where is him in the first movie. Sammo Hung is back but this time around he is playing as Ip Man's sifu, Chan Wah Shun. He passed away before he can fully train Ip Man, but the duty is being took over by the eldest pupil, Ng Chung Suk (played by Yuen Biao). Ip Man has a step brother called Tin Chi (played by Louis Fan). The story tells of how Ip Man being trained since a small kid to a teenager and went to Hong Kong to study over there. Over there he meet Leung Bik (played by Ip Chun, Ip Man's real life son) who teaches him a different kind of Wing Chun. 

I am not going to tell what happened next, as you need to watch it for yourself. The focus of the movie would be telling everyone that there is no authentic or non-authentic Wing Chun martial art. Wing Chun is a ever changing art which the person could learn and transform it to a greater one. They also emphasize that the martial arts in the movie are more authentic Wing Chun compared to the first two movie. As the Wing Chun played by Donnie Yen are more commercial type (DUH!!) It also tells how Ip Man found his wife and how they fall in love and at the end married. It's not all kick and punches in the movie but rather story telling with some flying kicks in between. Not as good as the first one but it's still a good movie to watch. If you watched the first two episode, you might as well go for this just to finish it up. (Rating: 3.8 out of 5.0)

Prince of Persia : The Sands of Time

 

This could be one of the first game I had ever played on a computer as far as I could remembered that is. The game with the same name, was out during my primary years. And trust me, it's way long ago. Now we have the game in PS3 and also XBox 360 with superb graphics and gameplay. Now the movie is out and damn I am gonna watch it in the big screen. The movie started of with King Sharaman (King of Persia) who had two sons, Tus and Garsiv. One day as he adopted a kid from the market named Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal). After 15 years, the prince had grown up and together with their uncle Nizam (Ben Kingsley) as their adviser the Persian won a lot of war. During an invasion of the land of Alamut, they were led to believed that the kingdom of Alamut are selling arms to their enemy and invaded them. Alamut is a sacred place with a secret mission to protect the Sand of Time. Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) is the guardian of the place. 

The story line is plain and easy to follow. Don't need no genius to understand the plot here. You can predict the whole story even from the start of the movie. But that is not a bad thing. As long as you have a good cast and also good story line to go with it. Plenty of laughs to carry you along the movie so you won't feel so bored even when you know what will happen next. Honestly I had more fun watching this than Clash of The Titans. So if you're free on the weekends and it's still in the cinema, do try to give it a try and let me know what you think.

Glee

I saw this mini series in my playlist for months but didn't gave it any thought till some friends of mine were talking but the songs inside the show. I think most of you out there would have watch or at least heard about it since it's already rolling into the third season now. I had managed to watched 18 episodes of it in 3 days. Yes, you heard me right, it's really that good and entertaining. Entertaining in terms of the musical scenes in each of the series. It's an American Musical Comedy Drama all lump into one. The mini series tells of a school teacher, Mr. Schuster who decided to pick up the school's music class, Glee and recruiting some of the weirdest but talented students. The hard part would be sustaining the class as there are internal issues of the members are afraid of how other students are looking at them while the external from a Ms. Sue who wanted to crush them all. Trust me the movie is not just about drama-ness but the music selections from the early 80s till the very recent Beyonce's Single Lady. One word, Fabulous~~~!!

Ip Man 2

Ip Man or most people called it I.P Man has a lot of good reviews and response from my friends. Some told me they cried during a part of the movie, while some cursed in the movie when the gwai lo talked ill of us Asian. This must be really good. I can still remember the scenes from the first installment as I watched it few weeks before this. Well, just to refresh the memory and the fight between him and the ten Japanese is so memorable. The second movie continued where it left off when Ip Man and his family escaped the Japanese armies and resided at Hong Kong with the help of his friends. Life is difficult as it's not easy to open a martial art school during that era.

The martial art world, has their own set of rules which is being headed by Master Hung played by Sammo Hung who is also the martial art director of the movie. But no matter how good you are, you are still governed by the corrupted police head at that time. During a competition, Sammo Hung is being killed by a English boxer name Twister. The Twister then later insult all Chinese martial artist and this infuriate Ip Man who later decided to go mano e mano with him in the ring. No surprises on who wins, but it's truly a dramatic and full of great martial art. I don't think there is a third installment of the movie, so better get your ass to the cinema and watch it for yourself. And the last part where Bruce Lee came to look for Ip Man was so funny. Remember to watch that and tell me that's not funny. OK, I watched two movies in one day. So sue me.

Iron Man 2

I had mix opinion about this movie. I am so looking forward to watching the sequel of the movie. But I am always going into the cinema with an open heart and mind. I can't always take whatever people said about a movie without watching it myself. And this is an example of what I meant. I truly enjoyed the movie and I don't even felt that it's over or close to 2 hours while watching it. Everyone is still the same with except for Lt. Col. James 'Rhodey' Rhodes as it's being played by Don Cheadle. So whose the new villain? He is called Ivan Vanko who is played by Mickey Rourke.

Story takes place after the first movie after Tony Starks announced to the world that he's really Iron Man. Government thinks that the Iron Man suit is a threat to nation and asked Starks to gave it up to the army. But of course the latter declined and assured  that no one in the world will come close of developing a suit similar to his or at least not in 20 years time. Then Ivan Vanko appeared and created a similar suit of his own and managed to harm Iron Man sort of speak. Starks's competitor Justin Hammer saw this potential in Ivan and managed to rescue him from the prison to work for him. But in this case, who is using who is still unsure. 

At the end, Iron man saves the day, again. Duh~! Together with his buddy, Rhodey who is wearing the iron man suit code name War Machine. As the name goes, the suit specialize in heavy weaponry. The movie also tells how Tony managed to create a new element to replace the toxic Paladium in his body. Overall, it's a really entertaining movie as Tony or Robert Downey Jr. is so humorous and when action sake, there's plenty of that too. Nick Fury played by Samuel L. Jackson has more scenes in this installment with Natasha Romanoff as the special agent from SHIELD. As usual, please stay back at the end of the movie for a sneak preview of the up-coming movie from Marvel. If you don't get what the hell happens at the end of the movie, let me know. haha~!!! One word, Thor.