Legend Of Miracles

Title: The Forbidden Kingdom Starring: Jet Li, Jackie Chan, Michael Angarano, Liu Yifei, Li Bing Bing Genre: Action & Adventure Rating: Parental Guidance - Action Violence Summary: An American teenager who is obessed with Hong Kong cinema and kungfu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop; the legendary stick weapon of Monkey King. WIth the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself travelling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King. The forbidden Kingdom is a mega production starring Asian Superstars Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

Review: I know, Jackie Chan and Jet Li, the two great kungfu artistes, are co-starring in this show. But to me, it isn’t enough to save the show. To be honest, the show is bland and unoriginal. A saving grace is probably the total 15 minutes worth of fighting out of the entire 98 minutes of show. The plot is a typical guy goes on quest, saves the world, get the girl and lives happily ever after. The “get the girl” part is not very obvious but anyone can guess what is going to happen in the end, judging from the ending.

Jackie Chan and Jet Li, of course, stars as the two kungfu masters. One is dubbed as “The Drunken Immortal” while the other is nicknamed “The Silent Monk”. There was a good five to six minutes fight between the two of them when Jet Li stole the staff from Angarano. But other than that, nothing much to expect. These days, with computer effects, anyone can be kungfu masters, but it is always nice to see the real thing in action. Every punch and kick are down to earth and nothing flowery, except of the qing-gong part. But that was not over done as well. On the whole, the kungfu part was well balanced.

But I have no idea why Liu Yifei is in the show. Judging by how the whole story flows, she is as good as redundant. Once again, she reprises her role as a cool and collected girl with an angsty past. I believe the day she acts as a bouncy, airhead bimbo is the day Mars collide with Earth. Anyway, it is unnerving to hear her referring to herself as a third person and it is even more disconcerting to see her “fight”. When I mean fight, I mean she and Li Bing Bing doing a variation of tango dance in the background when the camera is focusing on Angarano. I know the attention is not on them, but I simply couldn’t help noticing their comical action. Couldn’t they at least pretend to do some fighting instead of twisting and making the sleeves of their clothes fly? And I can never understand - why is there such a deep enmity between their two characters?

And is Michael Angarano a new face? If he is, then his acting is pretty good. He really acts as if he knew all the kungfu moves in the different shows. He even did quite a good imitation of Bruce Lee. I particularly like the moment when he bugged Jackie Chan what moves he is going to learn and Jackie Chan simply overfill his cup with tea and tell him to “empty his cup” if he really wants to learn kungfu. Which Angarano promptly did. With confusion.

Rating: Overall, it is rather a letdown despite all the big hoo-ha surrounding it. It is only 2.0 / 5.0 to me.

Title: Accuracy Of Death (死神の精度) Spoken Language: Japanese Subtitles: English / Mandarin Genre: Fantasy / Supernatural / Action & Adventure Rating: Parental Guidance Summary: Chiba (Takeshi Kaneshiro) appears seven days before a person dies an unexpected death. His job is to observe the person for seven days, and then decide either to ‘execute’ or ’suspend’ this person’s life. He is a… Grim Reaper. Today, in the rain, he waits. His subject, whose death is due in seven days, is Kazue Fujiki (Manami

Konishi). Exhausted after her day of work, Kazue emerges from her office. It’s time for the Reaper to go to work…

Review: Yes, I know Takeshi is in it. But I didn’t watch it because of him. Or rather, I was going out with my friends yesterday and they had decided to watch this movie, so I just tag along. Like what the summaries had said, it is all about a Death God (死神) doing his work. The starting is a cliche, where Chiba attended a funeral and talked to a little girl, explaining about their existence and whatnots, only to turn out that the girl is a ghost.

The story is not just about that though. It’s about Chiba who always proceed to kill off his targets, although he always tells his “partner”, the lovable and cute black dog, that he is “probably” going to do it. The whole story was held loosely by three different short stories, although you’ll only see the link towards the end of the whole movie. I’m not going to spoil any of you, although you are probably going to guess what is happening.

Like I said, the plot is your average story prodding along some obscure parts of Japan. I think I like the movie because Takeshi managed to pull off that whole I’m-innocent-just-a-kiddie-doing-his-job look successfully. I know of a few actors and actresses doing that and ended up looking very fake. There are many jokes in the stories, which are old, but there are quite a few scenes which I thought was classic. Like Chiba asking his doggie partner how the victims are chosen and his partner just replied carelessly “By lots”. A stupefied look and a moment later, the doggie simply continued “Laugh. It’s a joke”.

No doubt, the movie is trying to teach some obscure philosophy, something about going round in circles and it still boils down to the same thing. But do not expect anything much. Oh, incidentally, if you don’t know Japanese and you are a slow reader, be it Mandarin or English, it might not be a bad idea to train a bit first. Me and my friends had training from watching Japanese anime “Bleach”, which we ended up discussing during dinner instead of this movie.

Rating: 3.0 / 5.0 Like I said, don’t expect anything much.

Title: The Tattooist Spoken Language: English / Chinese / Samoan Subtitles: English and Chinese Genre: Horror / Supernatural Rating: NC - 16 Summary: American tattoo artist Jake Sawyer (Jason Behr) explores and exploits ethnic designs from around the world. At a tattoo expo in Singapore, he glimpses the exotic world of traditional Samoan tatau in the work of the fiercely proud Alipati (Robbie Magasiva). Fatefully, Jake is attracted to Alipati’s beautiful cousin, Sina (Mia

Blake).

When Jake impulsively steals an ancient Samoan tattooing tool, he
unwittingly unleashes a powerful angry spirit. Suddenly, his art takes on a frightening new dimension, exposing everyone he touches, including the feisty Singaporean Victoria (Caroline Cheong), to mortal peril.

Sensing the solution can only lie with the Samoans, Jake follows them to Auckland, where he runs into an old adversary, tattoo artist Crash (Michael Hurst) and a new one, the respected Samoan elder Aleki Va’a (David Fane).

His investigation takes him on a devastating journey into the dark heart of Pacific mysticism. There, Jake must recover his own soul if he is to save the woman he loves and escape with his life.

Review: As I admitted to Min, I always have a soft spot for horror movies. Besides, I haven’t been to movies for a long time. So it was yesterday, when I met up with Min, that we trooped down to the theatre and bought the tickets for the horror flick, “The Tattooist”. But to my horror, it was not that horrifying after all.

There wasn’t really anything much to the storyline. The 1 hour and 45 minutes movie can be condensed as such: A) A tattooist stole a tattoo tool, B) He met a lady whom he fall in love at first sight, C) His works became life-threatening - at least to the people who got tattooed - and horrors descend, and D) He manages to solve the whole mystery - which actually means finding out what the spirit wants - and saves the day. And the girl as well. Finally, there is an unspoken rule that they live happily ever after. That’s all to the storyline.

It’s not exactly for the faint of heart. But it is quite trying for the mind. I was almost bored to tears and I looked at the watch quite a few times. The so-called horrors are nothing more than just cheap flickering visions, fast UMOs - Unidentified Moving Objects - in mirrors or glass panels, lots of blood, sudden sound blarings and those stupid anticipation by the actors. You know, slowly walking and looking at something, only to find out that it is nothing.

Not only that, there are some scenes which were disjointed. I didn’t follow the stealing tattoo tool part, nor the sudden exodus to Auckland. Worse of all, I didn’t even know why he wanted to find that girl so badly. There isn’t any explanation at all. If he did not attempt to find that girl in Singapore, why would he want to find her in Auckland, just after having a few nightmares? You definitely don’t see me running to a girl I’ve just met recently after having nightmares. You’ll probably find me in the arms of my mother.

The saving grace of the film is probably the strong Samoan cultures that permeates throughout the movie and the origins of tattoos, or “tatau”, as they call it. It cast tattoos as arts, or in the Samoa culture, the pe’a rites where it means boys become men.

And I absolutely have to say this. It is kind of sad that Singapore could be so easily represented by Fullerton Hotel and that hideous statue known as Merlion. I don’t have anything against that water spewing sculpture, but honestly, that statue is so hideous that it is almost embarrassing. At least they left poor Stamford Raffles alone. The pitiful Englishman has been looking at Singapore River for the past 90 years, although I have no idea what he is looking at. Some say he is looking at the future of Singapore. I say he is looking at his homeland wistfully.

Rating: If it wasn’t for the colloboration between Singapore’s Mediacorp Raintree and New Zealand’s Touchstone TV, I would have given worse. 2.0 / 5.0 for the show.

Title: She’s The Man Starring: Amanda Bynes (What A Girl Wants), Channing Tatum (Coach Carter), Laura Ramsey (Lord Of The Dogtown), Robert Hoffman (MTV’s Wild ‘N Out), Alex Breckenridge (Big Fat Liar) Genre: Teen Idol / Humor / Sports Rating: Parental Guidance Summary: When teenage girl, Viola, discovers that her soccer team has been cut from her school, she disguises herself as her twin brother

and takes his place at his new boarding school for two weeks. Comedy ensues when she falls in love with her new roommate, Duke, and finds herself the object of affection of the beautiful Olivia, the girl whom Duke loves. Things get even more complicated when her twin brother, Sebastian, finally turns up.

Review: I saw the trailer and I couldn’t pass up a chance on a comedy movie. I always have a thing for comedy and horror shows, and the trailer was suitably bone tickling. To cut things short, if you don’t like “A Cinderalla Story”, don’t bother to read the review. In short, this is somewhat similar to “A Cinderalla Story”.

The movie was somewhat predictable and geared towards teen idols and the stuff. For crying out loud, the whole adolescent community exists simply to idolise their…well, idols. With the recent surge of This-an-idol and That-a-get-famous-gig shows, it is no wonder that these shows are selling out best. Girls drool all over half-naked guys, while guys fantasize girls in bikinis.

But this movie do have its moments, when Viola Hesstings (Amanda Bynes) deliver her punchlines at her jock of a boyfriend, Justin (Robert Hoffman). My favorite would probably be the one where Justin asked for five seconds of Amanda’s time at the carnival and Amanda babble on something about “our breakup is not about soccer” thing while counting down the five seconds with her hand, only to deliver a slap to Justin’s face (and ego, as a matter of fact). Talk about Lao-Tzu’s “Deal intelligently with the unintelligent people”…

The slap really stings though, when Amanda keep giving Duke (Channing Tatum) love advice as “a third party who absolutely have no personal feelings or interest in the matter”, when she WAS, in fact, involved in the matter. It was one of those moments where you simply have to laugh.

But if you are looking for a tear jerker moments in the movie, especially towards the end where Amanda do a “Mulan” in comtemporary style, I’m sorry, but you’ll have better luck in Taiwanese drama. Taiwanese drama don’t just have tear jerking moments; they literally switch on the tap for hours.

But, if you are looking for a good laugh and a quick whoping sense of righteousness, “She’s The Man” is the show for you.

Rating: Plot is simply too predictable, and I’m looking for more than just girls in bikinis (or soccer jersey, as the matter of fact). I give this movie a 2.0/5.0

The Tattooist (Dated: 5th Dec 2007)

“Tsukuyomi” Moon Phase (Dated: 24th Sep 2006)

She’s The Man (Dated: 3rd Sep 2006)