White Vengeance (HK) - Exciting Battle of Wits Periodic Movie

White Vengeance
Synopsis:
The movie started with a group of scholars and their teacher touring the chamber of 1st emperor of China's Han Dynasty and was deliberating about the historical known incident, Banquet of Hongmen. During that time, a stranger walks in and told a story of how the Banquet of Hongmen comes about. The movie then panned to 2 opposing Generals Xiang Yu (Feng Shaofeng) and Liu Bang (Leon Lai) who met and became friends and allied to overthrow the current dynasty, the Qin Dynasty. In the beginning all was going smoothly until one fine day when Liu's loyal forces (Jordan Chan,and others) influence Liu Bang to seek his own leadership than to follow the shadow of Xiang Yu. So, it is then transpired that whomever takes control of the city of Xianyang first will become the rightful leader and take possession of the current Qin Dynasty seal. Xiang Yu who aspire to become the leader, inform Liu Bang to accompany his lover, Yuji (Liu Yifei) to his village while he fights a final battle before transcend to Xianyang. However, while accompany Yuji, Liu Bang took the opportunity to take control of Xianyang and thus, anger Xiang Yu into believing that Liu Bang betray him and plot to take over Xianyang with force. This forces Liu Bang to seek help from a local bred genius military adviser, Zhang Lian (Zhang Hanyu). However, Xiang Yu also has a very experience and genius military adviser in his step-dad, Fan Zeng (Anthony Wong) to reclaim the city. Both of them are then engage in a battle of wits in the Banquet of Hongmen where both played 5 sets of chinese chess called Weiqi simultaneously. Miraculously Zhang Lian survived the onslaught and tries to deceit Zhang Lian by agreeing to become his personal military adviser and plot the defeat of Zhang Lian. When Zhang Lian is killed in the battle with Liu Bang, Liu Bang became the emperor of Han Dynasty. However when Liu Bang ascend to become emperor, he order the execution of his trusted lieutenants including military adviser, Zhang Lian because he is paranoid of being back stabbed and killed. In the end, it was revealed that the stranger that told the story is Zhang Lian.
Review:
When i first watch it, i thought that it was going to be another hack-slash chinese emperor-era movie. But as the movie developed, i was engaged and totally absorbed with the intelligent dialogue and fast paced of the movie. There was not a moment of dull except when it involves Yuji but luckily that was kept to the minimal and the movie focus was on Anthony Wong and Zhang Hanyu playing battle of wits which kept the whole movie entertained. In fact, i think that Anthony Wong's performance as the blind but genius Fan Zeng was nothing short of brilliance and whenever he is on-screen, the movie lights up. With strong performance from other cast members - Leon Lai, Feng Shaofeng and Jordan Chan, i placed the movie's entertainment factor similar to Red Cliff or even a notch better. The battle scene for the movie was a disappointment but the heavy plot and brilliant chess game was enough to cover any weakness of the movie.

Verdict:

I give this movie a 4 out of 5 star. A terrific good movie.

Darkest Hour (US)- An Okay Movie to Kill Time

Darkest Hour
Synopsis:
The movie started with 2 guys, Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Mighella) who are traveling to Moscow, Russia to present their web project - similar to Facebook type to a major customer in hoping to get millions from it. However, they found out that their web project was plagiarize by Skyler (Joel Kinnaman), their Russian partner counterpart. So, they decided to chill-out in a bar and befriended 2 young american girls, Natalie (Olivia Thirlby) and Anne (Rachael Taylor) who are tourist and first-timer in Moscow. Their social event was suddenly interrupted when many glowing lights came falling from the skies. When the glowing lights descended to the land, they became invisible and this prompted a policeman to poke it with his cub stick. Almost immediately after poking it, the policeman was blown to pieces and this creates hysteria and panic among all the clubbers and other people when the invisible light began attack and blow away all the humans. Sean, Ben, Natalie, Anne and Skyler manage to evade the attack and find a safe place in a storeroom beneath the night club. After 4 days confining themselves, they decided to check the place and also to find the US embassy in order for them to go home. However, upon opening the door, they discover the whole street and city is empty and deserted. Their destination to the US embassy is also destroyed but found an emergency broadcast saying a submarine is waiting for survival before disembark. The group decided to make a run for that location but to make matter worse, the aliens in invisible form are still around to destroy any living things around including Skyler. Thus, the group decide to use light bulbs as warning sign of aliens presence because the bulbs are lighted up when alien passes by. In the city they found other residents including a weird old electrician inventor who invented a microwave gun to stun the aliens and a group of russian protectors. The group decided to help Sean and the gang to reach the submarine but during the process, Ben and Anne was killed. Finally, Sean and Natalie was rescued and finally descend to the submarine safely. Before the movie ended, it shows that information was relayed across the world on how to kill the aliens using microwave gun.
Review:
The above title says it all. It was watchable but excluding a good storyline, good action, good CGI and good dialogue. If compared to another almost similar type movie - Vanishing on the 7th Street, this is considered much better only because there are a lot of running around and exert a bit of suspense. The movie duration is only about 1.5 hours or 90 minutes and the action starts right after about 10 mins into the movie. The beginning was quite exciting when the alien start attacking the clubbers in the club but then it went downhill with less and less action and more running (running to the embassy, running to the apartment, running to the supermarket, running to the submarine). There are not much CGI to be seen apart from having the alien obliterate the humans one by one where there should be more bigger scale attack if this is suppose to be an alien invasion thingy. On the plus side, the Moscow scenery was breathtaking and beautifully shot but that alone is unable to save this movie from being just an average joe.   
Verdict:
I give this movie a 2 out of 5 star.

The Skin I Live In (Spain) - Slow Confusing Beginning, Shocking Finale

The Skin I Live In 
Synopsis:
The movie started with Dr. Robert Ledgard (Antonio Banderas) a plastic surgeon and scientist  trying to experiment and discover a perfect skin that is able to withstand burns and insect bite after the death of his late wife in a car accident. He decided to use a girl named Vera Cruz (Elena Anaya) as a guinea pig by placing layers and layers of the skin onto her as well as making the girl face looks like his wife. The movie later panned back and forth to reveal that Dr. Robert Ledgard's wife was indeed involved in a car crash but survive and had burn almost of her body and face. Unable to see her horrible face, she committed suicide in front of her daughter, Norma Ledgard (Blanca Sanchez) who suffers from mild depression. One night in a party, Norma was beaten and raped by Vicente (Jan Cornet) and was discovered by Robert. However, unable to take it, Norma went into severe depression and admitted into mental illness institution. Robert then decided to find Vicente and to take revenge for her daughter's suffering. Robert kidnapped Vicente and held him hostage. There, he perform skin graft experiment on him starting with his private parts from male to female, then his body from male to female and finally his face to become his wife. Lastly, Vicente name is changed to Vera Cruz. One night, Vera plot her long escape by emotionally consoling Robert and takes a gun to shot Robert. After his death, Vera finally went to her/his mom's shop and finally reveal that she is actually Vicente.
Review:
The movie started slow, very slow pace with many current time rewind back to previous time, then forward again to current time. In the beginning it is extremely confusing but after getting the hang of it, it looks a bit interesting especially on the story of Vicente and how he becomes Vera. Overall performance of Antonio Banderas is quite forgettable as a crazy brilliant scientist who created a Frankenstein in Vicente but the performance of Jan Cornet and Elena Anaya who portray as Vicente and Vera Cruz are good and pitiful. Overall, it is a shocking revelation but the movie pace could have been a little bit better.

Verdict:

I give this a 2.5 over 5 star 

Warrior - A Bloody Good Action-Emo Drama

Warrior
Synopsis:
The movie opens with ex-Marine Corps, Tommy Riordan (Tom Hardy) visit his father, Paddy (Nick Nolte), a former alcoholic who has been sober for nearly 1000 days. As the conversation continued, it has been found that Paddy has divorced / separated from his wife due to his alcoholic habit. Tommy follows his mom while Paddy's older son, Brenden (Joel Edgerton) follows him. However, Tommy's mom succumb to illness and finally passed away, thus Tommy has always had the strong hatred for his dad. The next day while training in a gym, Tommy accidentally beat unconscious a UFC mixed martial art fighter, Mad Dog Pete Grimes, while sparring with him. Due to this, Tommy decided to ask his dad, Paddy to help train him since his dad was an experience coach in wrestling for a Sparta Tournament with a prize money of $5million. It is later explained in the movie that Tommy enters the tournament in order to donate his winning to the widow and son of his fallen friend in the Marine Corps. The movie then panned to Paddy older son, Brenden a physics teacher, a father with 2 daughters who is also having his own financial problem and was about to have his home foreclosed by bank. As such, he is moonlighting as a mixed-martial art fighter at night to earn some extra income. He then decided to enter the tournament so that he can try to win the prize money to help in his financial difficulties. With his friend-coach, Frank Campana, Brenden decided to re-train himself to be physically fit for the competition. During the competition, Brenden saw Tommy and then both decided to meet up for conversation. At this time, Tommy is also burn with hatred for his brother for leaving both him and his mom to fend for themselves by choosing his father over them. Brenden inform Tommy that he is also upset that he was kept in the dark on his mom's illness and passing. Thus, both went off in different direction and finally both met again in the finals of the tournament where they slug it out from their anger and despair for each other and finally the forgiveness from each other.
Review:
I had always wanted to watch this film due to the very positive review but always delay until last weekend where i managed to pop-in the DVD to my recorder and watch it. From the start go, this movie has me keeping to the edge with its good dialogue, acting from all the main actors such as Nick Nolte who gave a wonderful performance as a father seeking forgiveness to Joel Edgerton who is an average joe going into the tournament an underdog to Tom Hardy, a silent but with full of anger individual seeking for solace. Director Gavin O' Connor manage to keep the viewers excited with a good match of drama and action at the ringside. When the tournament started, the action is bloody and the choreographer is beautifully executed. Tom Hardy as Tommy is extremely menacing inside the ring and he is the one i was rooting for when he demolish his opponent one by one to reach to the finals. I am anticipating his character, Bane in The Dark Night Rises to be somehow good. Part of the movie reminded me of Rocky and the spirited performance from both brothers makes me somehow torn between who to root for. Overall this is indeed a good movie with combination of drama of seeking forgiveness, about family and of course, its bloody good fighting action.

Verdict:

I give this movie a full 5 star out of 5 for excellent cast, story and above all the fighting action. I watch the movie x2 again immediately and that goes to show how good this movie is.      

Alvin & The Chipmunks 3: Chipwreaked - Boring, Forgettable & ZZZ Sequel

Alvin & The Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked
Synopsis:
The movie started with the Chipmunks and Chipettes going on a holiday cruise with Dave (a slimmer Jason Lee). In the cruise ship, Dave bump into Ian (David Cross) who now works as the ship mascot - a bird and also to report to the captain of any misbehaving patrons. As usual, the Chipmunks and Chipettes started to create havoc and accidentally fly-off in a kite to a deserted island. Dave upon seeing the Chipmunks and Chipettes flying away, decided to rescue them but was also blown away together with Ian to the different section of the island. The chipmunks and the Chipettes decided the only way to survive in that island while awaiting help is for them to turn into their basic surviving skill. Along the way, the also found that they are not the only ones in the island. They also found a woman named Zoe (Jenny Slate) living in the island for about 8 years and in the beginning Zoe was found to be friendly and fun but she has a hidden agenda whereby she is searching for a lost gold treasures supposedly buried in the island.
Review:
I was anticipating this movie as i found that the 1st movie: Alvin & the Chipmunks is a nice, good and cute family movie especially Theodore. Then, 2nd movie is a bit bland, usage of same formula and plus the introduction of Chipettes, it somehow took away the cuteness and fuzziness of original Chipmunks. So, in the 3rd movie, i expect the director to throw the Chipettes away and stay to the original Chipmunks but somehow it became Alvin & the Chipmunks & Chipettes again. Worse, the direction of the movie is simple, so the director has to put in a lot of silly things like Alvin creating havoc scene on the ship (non of the movie goers are laughing at all, heck the kids aren't even laughing), a lot of singing here and there but not so memorable- all these just to prolong the movie hours. In the end, it was a disappointing movie and it makes me wonder if this Alvin & the Chipmunks franchise has exhausted all ideas even after just 3 sequels. 
Verdict:
I give this a 1.5 star out of 5. Yawn! Forgettable movie. 

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - Good Action All Way

MI4: Ghost Protocol
Synopsis:
This is a little complicated plot whereby the movie started off in Budapest where an agent, Trevor Hanaway (Josh Holloway of Lost fame) an IMF agent was killed by an assassin for hire, Sabine Moreau while extracting a file containing nuclear launch code. Then, the movie panned to Moscow where Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) was imprisoned for unauthorized killing a group of Serbians. However, Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) managed to rescue Ethan from the prison so that Ethan can help to extract the stolen files as well as identifying the mastermind behind, named Cobalt. In order to do that, Ethan and his gang needs to infiltrate Moscow Kremlin archives but during their daring mission, they discovered that the files were stolen earlier and then the Kremlin was bombed. The Russian accuses the US for the provoked action as they thought that Ethan under the orders of US planted the bombs. Due to the complexity of the issue, the US president then activates "Ghost Protocol", an operation to disavow IMF agency and place the blame on Ethan and his gang but ensure that they continue to engage in tracking down Cobalt. While narrowly escaping from Russian attack that killed IMF secretary, Ethan together with intelligence analyst, William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) managed to identify Cobalt as Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist of The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo) and also discover that he is the mastermind behind the bombing in order to acquire the nuclear launch device.
Hendricks needs the nuclear activation code in order to activate the nuclear launch towards US soil and trigger a world war between Russia and US. Ethan discover that the exchange of the codes between Sabine Moreau and Hendricks will be in Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Ethan the the gang then devise a plan to extract the codes but failed with Hendricks having both the codes and activation devices. Ethan was then informed that Hendricks will be in Mumbai to use an old satellite own by Brij Nath (Anil Kapoor) to transmit the order to fire the missile. During that mission, Hendricks kill himself in order to ensure the launch of the nuclear missile will not be deactivate but Ethan managed to disarm the missile when Nath reveal the satellite override code to Carter while Dunn reconfigure the server in order for Hunt to send the disarmed codes back to the satellite.
Review:

MI3 was considered as one of the best non-stop action film in the franchise to me so when Ghost Protocol came up, i wasn't so keen due to the fact that it might have many over-acting of Tom Cruise as in his many previous movie. But i have a feeling that Tom Cruise knows about it especially when many of his recent movies bomb at the box-office such as Knight & Day (but i felt it was quite a funny film). So this film does not involve him overrated or over-acting and it keeps to the minimal with less dialogue but focuses on action action and non-stop action. The background soundtrack was also kept to the minimal to make the film more realistic. The comedic level was also kept to the minimal with quick one liner punch joke. My only dissatisfaction is how can Ethan who is suppose to be more youthful and more stronger physically keeps getting his ass beaten by Kurt Hendricks during their fight scene. It doesn't make sense at all but luckily other action scenes makes up for the rest of the film. So, was MI4 better than MI3. My answer is still no but its a commendable action film

Verdict:

I give this film a 3.5 star out of 5 

Cowboys & Aliens (US) - Western Spaghetti with too much sauce

Cowboys & Aliens 
Synopsis:
The movie started in 1873, Arizona Territory where a loner, Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) suddenly awakens in the desert injured and with no memory of who he is. There is also a weird metal band shackled to his left wrist and is unable to unbuckled. He proceed to wander into a town caleed Absolution where he was treated of his injuries by a local preacher, Meachma (Clancy Brown). Then, he began to find trouble with a rich drunk kid called Percy Dolarhyde (Paul Dano) who accidentally shot the town's deputy sheriff. The town sheriff also recognize the loner as Jake, the head of a bandit who is involves in robbery and murder.  Both Jake and
Percy is then haul up inside a jail and then proceed to extradite both during the night time. However, Percy's father, Woodrow (Harrison Ford) an influential figure demands the release of his son from Sheriff Taggart (Keith Carradine) but during the intense stand-off, the whole town is attacked by many alien spacecraft which also kidnapped the town peoples including Percy and Sheriff. Jake, Ella Swenson and Woodrow unwittingly join forces together with some american natives to hunt down the aliens and rescue the town folks. During their journey, they discover also the reason behind the alien abduction and the reason why the aliens are here.  Review:
I watch this film with not so high expectation due to the fact that it was quite a weak rating from other viewers but i decide to give it a try. It would say that the first 15 minutes was quite good and i was actually looking forward to the old western style stand-off between the Sheriff and Woodrow when all of a sudden, aliens started attacking.That was when the movie started to go downhill. The special effects was quite okay and the aliens are also good but somehow, the weak plot combined with silly logic seems to overwhelm the movie and it is unable to outshine itself. I felt that if the movie were to go on a different path, it would have been a better movie but it dwells on the aliens being a gold robbers - how silly is that. The movie dialogue also goes nowhere and it gives me an impression that they were only wasting time just to complete the screen time for the finale battle. The finale battle is also pretty weak and somehow it didn't make me feel anticipate to it, makes me feel that i want to turn off the movie off as soon as possible. I  would say that Craig Daniels make a handsome hunky cowboy but to me, Paul Dano as Percy Dolarhyde actually steals the show as a papa's boy and is funny to watch. It is unfortunate that he was kidnapped early in the movie and only releases in the end of the movie. Harrison Ford is a waste of talent in this movie. 

Verdict

I give this movie a 2 out of 5.