http://jelct.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html
Snowybeagle of CHF has been acknowledged ...
Wow, like many other surfers, I googled my own ID from time to time, and surprise finds do occur.
This time, it's on the blog of another Francophonic Sinophile ... wonder if it's anyone I know ...
Actual site : http://jelct.blogspot.com/2008/03/rponse-la-devinette-011.html
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Reign of Assassins 劍雨
| Rating: | ★★★ |
| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Action & Adventure |
This is one time when not-high-expectations helped - the movie did not disappoint.
There is a distinct absence of John Woo's trademarks, so if he did significantly advised the director Suo Chao-pin, he must have mastered the art of subtlety and impart the essence rather than the form.
Though other reviewers compared it to Face-Off, I thought the plot was more akin to old-school Gulong's workmanship - especially the theme of betrayals, lies, and unexpected twists.
Overall, I agree with another reviewer that there were distinct plotholes and an unreasonable measure of coincidence - which could have been addressed but were not.
The movie opened with textual narration giving the whole background of the story - whatever happens to the adage "Show, Don't Tell"???
During early Ming Dynasty (clearly shown on the tombtone indicating reign of HongWu, plus capital was at Nanjing), the body of the legendary Damo was stolen from the grave.
Suddenly, rumours became rife that the body contained secrets to ultimate martial prowess.
Kind of strange that it took more than a thousand years after the body was buried for someone to suddenly be inspired to think that it possessed a great secret worth stealing.
The poor body was subsequently broken into 2 parts, and became the object of bloody strife among pugilists for its possession.
Among the victims was the Zhang family. That the patriarch was a senior Court official seemed almost just incidental and presented absolutely no relevance to the movie. This is yet another glaring hole I cannot overlook.
The culprits of the massacre was the assassins' guild known as Black Stone (黑石). Again, the movie-maker missed another story-telling opportunity to draw out significance of the name. Seems like the name was chosen at random.
Fortunately, the epithet of the guild-leader, the Wheel King (转轮王), had its origins in some Buddhist texts of the underworld, or so the movie claimed.
Anyway, the assassin Drizzle (细雨) was among those participating in the massacre of the Zhang household, and she left after obtaining their objective - half of the copse.
She did not make it to the rendezvous with the rest of the assassins, having been intercepted by a monk who seemed intent on reforming her.
After months of altercation, the monk died in the process of revealing to her the vulnerabilities of her skills, shaking her so much that she decided to undergo surgery to change her appearance and lead a mundane life.
And that was how she ended up renting a big house to live by herself, in a big city, and took up hawking textiles along the street.
Being a single, not-so-young but still pretty lady (Hey, this was Miss Ipoh okay?), she received endless proposals from pleibeians. It was a young courier who won her heart though.
Their normal lives were disrupted when she was forced to reveal her skills to save their lives during a bank robbery.
Yet despite leaving no eye-witnesses, the guild managed to track her down, somehow seeing through her totally-changed appearances.
To stall for time, she had to agree to help the guild retrieve the other half of the copse and surrender her own half.
Up to here, it was nothing new, though there was a witty remark here and there.
I felt for Barbie Hsu who was acted as a girl who was recruited to replace Drizzle in the guild. Her role offered very little towards the story.
There was potential there - she was supposed to represent an alternative, a girl who was in the beginning helpless over her own fate, given a chance to stand on her own, embracing the very life that Drizzle had given up.
Shawn Yue too, was under-utilised in his role as the assassin Thunder, playing a man who wanted little more than be with his family and make noodles.
One thing that did not disappoint though was the revelation of the real secret of the Damo copse.
The acting was fine, the underlying plot was okay - it's just the story-telling could have done with a bit more polishing.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame 狄仁杰之通天帝国
| Rating: | ★★★ |
| Category: | Movies |
| Genre: | Mystery & Suspense |
Tang Dynasty intrigues ... martial artists with cool moves and exotic weapons ... enigmatic allies who might turn against you without a blink ... and LJM babes who either want to kill you or bed you ... and when they're through, you still can't tell which ...
What spoils it all for the movie was not the colossal statue (通天浮屠) they supposedly built but making the (second) Imperial Capital Luoyang out to be port city with deep waters more akin to Canton ... and 3-masted East Indiaman (or man-o-war) ships sailing 1,000 years ahead of their time.
Hey, maybe the movie was not set in our Earth's historical China but in an alternate reality ... yeah, that'd work.
I did enjoy cameos by Richard Ng (吴耀汉) and Teddy Robin (泰迪罗宾) though ...
Okay, back to the movie itself.
Di RenJie (Dee) had been imprisoned for some 8 years for opposing Wu Zetian's assuming the regency.
As Wu prepared for ascending the throne, two of her courtier involved in inspection of a colossal statue outside the palace mysteriously burst into flames.
A talking deer ... some avatar of the Imperial Chaplain (who came up with *that* translation) ... spoke to her to rehabilitate Dee and assign him to investigate the case.
Dee who had been serving menial labour in charge of burning unwanted Court missives had managed somehow not only to pretend to be blind, but also to read all the missives all these years and kept in tune with development in the empire.
Just before Wu's emissary, Shangguan Jing'Er (上官静儿, a fictional character, modelled after the historical Shangguan Wan'Er), arrived, masked assassins came to kill Dee, who had somehow long prepared for this day - expecting that should he be summoned back to Court, he'd face attempts on his life first.
A brief moment of levity was presented from Dee's exchange with his old fellow prisoner, commenting that life outside would not be necessarily better.
Aided by two officials, Shangguan Jing'Er and Pei DongLai (裴东来, from Ministry of Justice), Dee followed the first clue to the murder, which ironically was provided by the second wave of assassins who came after him.
The trail led to the underground Phantom City (鬼市) beneath Sui-Dynasty built Luoyang ... supposedly built from ancient ruins of the original Zhou Dynasty city Luo which sank over the centuries. Cool, I can relate to that. Forgotten Realms from TSR also got the underground city of Skullport. Unfortunately, little was actually seen from the city - and the boatman was a total rip-off from the Greek Mythology Charon.
Next cool thing was the use of needles to distort facial muscles to present a totally new face ... which incidentally gave Dee another clue.
Snowylady made the connection there ... but I was still fuming over the harbour scene and didn't.
When DongLai found the clues to the reason for the mysterious murders, I thought I knew the answer ... the giant statue was going to act as a super-weapon, redirecting and concentrating the sun-rays into destructive beams.
Well, the truth was a little more prosaic, but I guess that'd work too. They'd need something to balance the "assault deers" ...
As for the unmasking of the mastermind, it was kind of a giveaway to those familiar with the actors ...
Overall, enjoyed the show, but just can't get over the stupid harbour scene which was put in to show how cosmopolitan Luoyang was during Tang but to me became the fatal weakness of the show.
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