One of the stupid things I did after getting a PC was to download the video games, which I failed to beat as a child. The video game simulator software comes with build-in save and load functions, which were not available on the earlier, more primitive, gaming consoles. With the help of the save and load buttons, I was able to complete the tasks previously too demanding on my skills and patience. The film, "Edge of Tomorrow", starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, is based on a similar idea. Tom C...
Jun 12, 2014•5 min
Wire-tapping has always been just a hook in Siu Fai Mak and Felix Chong's "Overheard" series, the third and latest installment presents the most advanced techniques of espionage, but the gadget-mongering never overshadows the moral discourse in a Hong Kong-specific context. The story is set in modern time New Territories, Hong Kong, when the largely agrarian peninsula is targeted by powerful real estate tycoons, much like the rest of contemporary China. The influx of capital wakes up insatiable ...
Jun 05, 2014•6 min
The X-men film series has always been on the list of science fiction films that I would introduce to others. When I was younger, I loved the fantasy elements and the spectacular exhibition of mutant powers, but as I've gotten older, the series' many dedicated actors, the inter-related, yet complete, storylines and the social metaphor hidden in plain sight have kept me from outgrowing the cartoon adaptation. "X-Men: Days of Future Past" has everything we've just mentioned, and they are presented ...
May 30, 2014•4 min
"Coming Home", or "Gui Lai", is more than just a man's struggle to come home, it also marks director Zhang Yimou's return to his creative sweet spot, and more importantly, a rebooted quest with a new companion. How far the couple would go depends on the market reaction to their first joint venture. "Coming Home" is adapted from the last 30 pages of Chinese writer Yan Geling's novel "Lu Fan Yan Shi". It tracks the life of ex-criminal, Lu Yanshi, as he tries desperately to get back to his family. ...
May 21, 2014•5 min
The Amazing Spiderman 2 is a love story and an unprecedented superhero spectacle. Most female characters in superhero movies are simply required to look good, scream when kidnapped and push a button or solve a puzzle at some point. Their presence is purely ornamental and they only appear when the director wishes to control the pace of the movie. But Emma Stone's character Gwen Stacy in the new Spiderman movie is different. I am not saying she doesn't scream loud enough when kidnapped by the Gree...
May 16, 2014•6 min
"The Great Hypnotist", or Cui Mian Da Shi, is a fascinating thriller produced by dedicated filmmakers. It would have been the perfect story if it wasn't deliberately simplified to meet the demands of lazy viewers. Sadly, this nice gesture has not been appreciated by film critics. The story is essentially a battle of wits between a highly successful psychotherapist and his female patient. The girl claims to be disturbed by her ability to see ghosts, but the therapist, being a confident man of sci...
May 16, 2014•6 min
The post-80s and 90s generations make up a significant age group in China; not because they are too self-involved or carefree which they are often criticized for being, but because they are the most willing consumers in an otherwise conservative market. The post-80s generation have been in the workforce for some time and are becoming more mindful of the need to invest their money in sustaining a quality lifestyle. In general, the post-90s group have yet to make a splash in the job market, but ha...
May 11, 2014•5 min
The path to making a successful science fiction film is one filled with many a traps and pitfalls. The storywriters must be vigilant not to mess with the laws of science, at least not too much; the fictitious elements must be carefully managed so they don't infringe on the story; and above all, the story must be guided by an idea that most viewers could relate to. But even if all these requirements were met, there is always the chance that the old folks at the Academy wouldn't appreciate the eff...
May 11, 2014•5 min
Despite the popularity of the film "The Hunger Games" in North America, I had low expectations. Because when it comes to man-killing-man survival movies, there is nothing that Gary Ross could have done to outsmart Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku in his thriller "Battle Royale." And the truth is Ross didn't even try. Instead, he went easy on the stage blood and made a PG-13 movie, with sequels yet to come. The arrangement seems fitting, because like "Twilight," "The Hunger Games" is the first of...
May 10, 2014•4 min
If you are willing to surrender to the joys of animated comedy, 'Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted' is well worth a look, and, this time, the animals are on the run in Europe. After the crazy mess the animals left in Monte Carlo, the unrelenting Monaco Animal Control Officer Captain Chantel DuBois is determined to take their heads as trophies. Alex, the lion, and his friends hide on a circus train to escape and invest everything hoping to follow the circus back to New York City. But the once fa...
May 08, 2014•4 min
If you are going to watch "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," don't think of it as a 9/11 disaster film. Instead, watch it as a coming-of-age story. Many moviegoers and critics expressed their disappointment at the way Stephen Daldry deals with the national disaster in the film. But, it was still nominated for Best Picture at the 84th Academy. In fact, this film, having received an average rating of 46 out of 100 on Metacritic, was the worst reviewed movie to receive a best picture nomination...
May 07, 2014•4 min
For a film that invokes the ghost of William Shakespeare, "Rio 2" is surprisingly lacking in dramatic conflict. It is essentially an animated version of "Meet the Parents" that has spun a wee bit out of focus. In a continuation of the metaphorical chiding of modern, city-based human existence, "Rio 2" brings the Blue Macaw family to the Amazon jungle to test their wings. But in their search for the rest of their species, they are hunted by a vengeful cockatoo, their arch enemy from the prequel. ...
Apr 24, 2014•6 min
Woody Allen continues his tour around European cities. In his new film "To Rome with Love" we follow his tourist frenzy around the Eternal City, like we did in the midnight streets of Paris. But this time, his sponsors in Rome may have little cause to cheer, because the new production contains the least possible Roman element, and an increase in the director's jabbering. The ensemble movie consists of four stories, each one more absurd than the last as they take turns developing as the burnished...
Apr 15, 2014•5 min
Sometimes building a new world means tearing the old one down. Marvel Studios has not actually brought down the old Hollywood discourse dominated by the overly-romantic Excellencies of Academy members. However, they have started creating a fantastic cinematic universe with the Captain America, Thor, Hulk and The Avengers films, as well as the TV drama "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", the pieces are all falling into their places as Marvel slowly uncovers the new world envisioned by comic book writer Sta...
Apr 14, 2014•7 min
It is almost customary that when a movie is successful, numerous sequels will be made. It is also customary that moviegoers will keep going for the numerous sequels and be disappointed, because they always compare the sequels with their own memories of the first, successful one. In fact, some of the sequels aren't necessarily that bad, "Men in Black 3" is one of the good examples. The story is consistently simple. Men wearing black suits go about the New York City blasting bad aliens with big gu...
Apr 13, 2014•4 min
Just one month ago, South Korean soap opera "My Love from the Stars" reached insane levels of popularity in China. Its lead actor Kim Soo-Hyun is still raking in appearance fees from various commercial events in China. But South Korean films are quite a different story. The country's most expensive co-production to date, "Snowpiercer", is now being screened in China and has fallen behind Chinese art-house movie "Black Coal, Thin Ice" in terms of box office earnings. That's important because as w...
Apr 10, 2014•7 min
My immediate impression after laughing my head off with "The Croods" was, how could the team be so creative and the movie so hilarious? Then I broke it down and found some of their gimmicks. But even after uncovering the secrets, the movie still strikes me as a very attractive piece of cartoon animation. A caveman family struggle to survive on a hostile prehistoric planet. The key to survival is to coop up in a cave and stay away from anything new. But a young female member of the family was bor...
Mar 31, 2014•4 min
'The Intouchables' is a modern 'bromance' story which conveys the most positive aspects of life. For that reason, it has trumped the Titanic at the box office and has managed to entertain a much wider audience in France. The movie begins with a car chase, which defines the general approach of the film: light-hearted enough to amuse you, yet serious enough to make you review your own way of life. The wealthy quadriplegic Philippe needs a new live-in care-giver. However, he is unimpressed by the l...
Mar 29, 2014•3 min
It is a commonly accepted norm that art-house films winning international awards don't sell very well in Chinese cinemas. Director Wang Quan'an's romantic drama "Tuya's Marriage" won the Golden Bear at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival, but its total box office revenues never exceeded the 2-million-yuan benchmark. China's film market has expanded exponentially since then, but 2 million yuan still remains a meager amount in the world of Chinese cinema. Director Diao Yinan's award-winning thriller "Bl...
Mar 27, 2014•6 min
The movie 'A Simple Life' by Hong Kong director Ann Hui is a real tear jerker. It documents the relationship between an old servant and her young master. As the elderly woman grown helpless in her old age, the young master assumes the role of a guardian in return for her many decades of loyal service. Despite the title of the film, a house servant's life is never simple. The servant Ah Tao knows where to get the best fruit and vegetables at the lowest prices. She knows the recipes of numerous de...
Mar 26, 2014•4 min
Moviegoers on the Chinese mainland can now visit the local cinemas for a look at Taiwan's most expensive film 'Seediq Bale.' The 150 million yuan historical drama epic is perhaps also the most topical and thought-provoking among the Taiwan director's recent productions. The story is based on the 1930 Wushe incident. The Seediq people had lived and hunted in Taiwan's wild and central highlands of Wushe for generations. But their way of life was interrupted when the Qing government in 1895 ceded t...
Mar 24, 2014•4 min
Celine Dion's overplayed song "My Heart Will Go On" used to bother me—that was until this Tuesday when I watched the re-release of James Cameron's unsinkable legend "Titanic." A hundred years after the ocean liner's doomed sailing, this behemoth token of human accomplishment has come back to conquer moviegoers once again in 3D and 3D IMAX screen versions. It must have been a daunting task to re-master the motion picture into a 3D-enhanced version. But then again, James Cameron himself had gone t...
Mar 23, 2014•5 min
As a comedy film, 'The Big Year' is only mildly funny. But for people who aren't familiar with the activity known as bird watching, or birding, this movie is quite an eye-opener. Avid fans of the popular sitcom 'The Big Bang Theory' may want to preserve with this move in order to catch a glimpse of the series' breakout character Sheldon Cooper. But I assure you, the main characters deserve your attention just as much, if not more. Three birders of different ages and professions, share the same e...
Mar 23, 2014•4 min
There is nothing particularly exciting about Tate Taylor's movie 'The Help." Although it involves the topic of racism, the conflicts are downplayed, for reasons we'll talk about later. Somehow the movie feels like a peaceful river that has flowed quietly through an undisturbed meadow for centuries. But in reality it is a lengthy 137 minutes—precisely why you'd better see it when you are in the right mood. For those women captured in the original novel of the same name by Kathryn Stockett, life w...
Mar 23, 2014•4 min
I would never have watched the movie "Dear Enemy" if it hadn't surprised me by making the Top 3 in the nationwide box office ranking. A film featuring a business scuffle like this could easily turn into a mere showcase of luxuries, while the title suggests it may well be just another chick flick, neither of which appeals to my interest. After 95 minutes in the cinema, my prediction was proven correct, except that the movie was so much worse than I had anticipated. A friend who watched the film w...
Mar 23, 2014•4 min
Wuxia, or martial arts, movies are a distinct genre of Chinese film. The most memorable ones are not necessarily those packed with nonstop action, but ones in which the main characters extol the so called Wuxia spirit–loyalty, sense of mission, free expression of emotion, the strong helping the weak...... Director Tsui Hark has succeeded in creating a lasting impression on viewers with many of his wuxia films, including "New Dragon Gate Inn." But will his new film "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate" ...
Mar 23, 2014•4 min
As China marks the 74th anniversary of Nanjing Massacre this year, Zhang Yimou presents his first war film "The Flowers of War." The celebrated director likely tried to do his best with the film, but I think he failed. The film is adapted from the novel "The 13 Women of Nanjing" by Chinese-American writer Yan Geling. It is about a group of refugees who take sanctuary in a church compound and struggle to survive as Japanese soldiers wreck havoc in the city. The contrast between a dozen prostitute...
Mar 23, 2014•4 min
Two years ago, director Terry Gilliam's production of the movie "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus" nearly went up in smoke. The filming was disrupted by the death of lead actor Heath Ledger, until Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law came to the rescue and took up the recasting of Ledger's role. But even this powerful line-up falls short of saving the film from becoming a difficult one for viewers. With a fondness for magic realism, Terry Gilliam is known for an overdose of imaginative fan...
Mar 23, 2014•3 min
I like director and actor Spike Jonze. His 1999 movie "Being John Malkovich" is on the list of some pretty thought-provoking films that I would offer to sober movie fans, while the "Jackass" franchise, which he had a hand in writing, is a favorite of one of my colleagues, who always takes it upon himself to cheer people up. The true talent and versatility in Spike Jonze have surprised us again and again, and his latest offering is his 2013 science fiction and romantic film, "Her". Like "Being Jo...
Mar 22, 2014•6 min
One can't possibly watch "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" without comparing it to the 1995 movie "A Chinese Odyssey." Both are based on the classic Ming Dynasty novel "Journey to the West." "Conquering the Demons" is a much more vivid rendition of the story, but less attractive. Although actor-turned-director Stephen Chow made his name playing so-called losers in comedy films, he is now assisted by perhaps the best computer-generate imagery technology available to Chinese directors. ...
Mar 19, 2014•5 min
