Seldom we see Denzel Washington so it's a great thing to see him here with no less than Mark Wahlberg as his co star. A simple story of undercover peeps with a lot of twists make up a good story telling of a movie here in 2 guns.
Just to keep the story short and simple, we get two undercover agents from two different government offices who kept their identities secret from each other. So criminals Bobby (played by Washington) and Stig (played by Wahlberg) got a shock of their lives that after they pulled off a huge bank heist, they learned that they were on the same side after all.
No story won't be complete without evil men so we have them at all sides here. We have the men from the Navy, the DEA and the cartel running after them after stealing away 43 million dollars. That's a lot of stories right there.
Everything gets done when our two unlikely heroes would eventually team up and hoodwinked all those who are after them. Making this movie fun and exciting to watch. A must watch if you ask us so we didn't spill much of the story herein.
Denzel Washington is still in his cool self here, but somehow his acting here is similar to that in the movie Equalizer so still a great watch. We love Mark Wahlberg's facial reactions when he's bewildered so when his forehead twitches, we know he's acting.
Currently being shown on Netflix, so make sure this is in your playlist.
What do you get when you have Woody Allen and John Turturro in a film? You get a wonderful film that's what.
Now the movie takes off with Dr. Parker (played by Sharon Stone) telling her patient Murray (played by Woody Allen) that she wants a menage a trois with her friend Selima (played by Sofia Vergara). She asks Murray if he could refer a willing male to join them. Murray then recommends Fioravante (played by John Turturro) to be that man. Murray then acted as a pimp and charges Dr. Parker for Fioravante's services. It turned out that he has a knack for this service and clients are streaming in courtesy of Murray. With a thriving business they take on trade names, Dan Bongo for Murray while Fioravante is Virgil.
As they say love is not good in prostitution but eventually Virgil fell in love with a jewish Widow Avigal (played by Vanessa Paradis). Their love blossomed until such time that Avigal realized that their relationship could never be. Heartbroken, Virgil then wants to retire but during a brief moment in a cafe with Murray, he meets a beautiful french woman in Loan (played by Loan Chabanol).
First off, you got to watch this movie if you can get your hands on this. Written and directed and starred in by John Turturro, a great actor and here, writer and director. A trivia regarding the great Woody Allen, he mostly does movies where he writes and directs and in this one, he is just an actor. We love Woody Allen's movies and we were skeptical if his performance as an actor would diminish if he was being directed by somebody else. Being a great performer that he is, he is great here as Dan Bongo aka Murray and the whole movie, has a Woody Allen feel to it which we love.
We were glad that John Turturro was able to deliver his best here opposite of Woody Allen and he truly is at par with the great comedian. The duo had great chemistry here making the film a marvel to watch.
Story line is simple. Its about a male prostitute and of course the movie shows him reluctant at first to be one then succeeding scenes with him encountering different women. All these were necessary for character development for both characters of Woody and John. Consider the pacing a smoldering ember, it just a flash fire that dies out as soon as it ignites, but this is a slow burn. Although we have the two here as leads, the movie revolves around a few women here, namely Dr. Parker, Selima and Avigal. Other characters lend their talents as supports were lead by Liev Schreiber, another great actor of our times.
Comedy without slapstick, without the cussing and dissing, this is the comedy that Woody Allen dishes out and we love this kind of comedy. We appreciate the dialogues as it was nicely written by John himself. Lines were witty and the story telling was simple yet endearing. Truly this movie is among our top 10 in our list of favorite movies.
Story is set in Beijing China, starts off with a young lady Miao Miao (played by Ni Ni) getting off an expensive car and enters another car with Jiang LiangLiang (played by Feng Shaofeng) who's driving. She asks him to drive off with her with the expensive car trailing them eventually Liangliang was able to elude the other car. With this, Miao Miao then hops off Liangliang's car into a taxi without bothering giving each others names.
As luck would have it, both were to meet again in one advertising shoot as Liangliang is a copy director on set while Miao Miao is a commercial model. They had a connection and immediately they are in a relationship. In such a short time thereafter, they lived together already. This was a bad move as Liangliang found out how jealous and controlling Miao Miao really is. She made a living hell out of Liangliang that they are constantly fighting already. Miao Miao constantly nags him about his constantly meeting or talking with his ex girlfriend and his spending long hours with his workmates. In the end, Liangliang felt he is constricted by their relationship.
This is not your typical romantic and sweet love story but instead its a love and hate kind of relationship. Of one woman's love that encroaches on a man's life and of how a man's efforts dealing with such kind of a woman. The film is head on drama and you will really feel how controlling Miao Miao is to Liangliang. We liked how the story was laid out, from the very beginning, of how they met, the sweet moments leading to their relationship.
then relationship went south from there. Miao Miao turned to be a nightmare for Liangliang. We thought this was just a passing story and that somehow it would lead them to change and maybe just maybe they will live happily ever after. This wasn't the case and their love have spiralled so much that love really did tore them apart. However the ending of the story confused us as to how did it really end.
The writer intentionally left us hanging as everything went on reverse without the actors acknowledging they went back to where they all started.
Overall the movie is a fatal attraction kind of love on the side of Miao Miao and we thought this was going to lead into a suspense thriller. This was still a love story of sorts in a weird kind of way.
If you are into romantic comedies, this is not the movie for you. If you like heavy dram kind of love ,then watch this and not expect a happy ending that you might expect. Being positive people that we are, we believed that they had a happy ending, going back to the emotions where they all started, but this was presented as to the way we expect it to be.
Currently being shown in YouTube, simply click on the thumbnail below.
If you like Sleepless in Seattle, you are in luck. This movie is about Seattle and New York as well, good enough to be your romcom flick for this coming weekend.
Wen Jiajia (played by Tang Wei) was a former magazine editor when she fell in love to a married corrupt businessman in Beijing. After knowing she is pregnant with his son, she has to fly to the United States to an illegal maternity center there. It was Frank (played by Wu Xiubo) a former doctor in Beijing who picked her up at the airport upon arrival in Seattle. He also took her to the maternity center run by Mrs. Huang (played by Elaine Jin). She was a handful to manage, she's always the prima donna one doesn't want to have in your household. She's throwing money around to get what she wants annoying those around her.
She orders Frank around and this frequent togetherness made her realize how nice Frank was. While in New York with Frank and his daughter, Jiajia learned that her credit card was being denied by the credit card company. This worried her so he tried calling her businessman boyfriend about it but she got no answer. Later on she learned that he was arrested and all his assets were frozen, including her credit card. She became broke and penniless as a result.
During this time Frank supported her until she delivered her son, and Jiajia got much closer to Frank and his daughter. So close that even without saying the usual I love you's, their actions speak for their feelings toward each other. All this was cut short when Jiajia's boyfriend finally came to Seattle. She had to join her boyfriend so she left Frank and her daughter. She got sad at her new home as she rarely sees her boyfriend and eventually she had to leave him.
Jiajia then started a website on her own while Frank passed his doctor's board exam in New York. As to celebrate Frank's acceptance in a New York hospital, he spent it with his daughter on top the empire state building. They took a picture together at the viewing deck and sends it to Jiajia. As luck would have it, they were also on top of the Empire State Building. She rushed to look around for Frank and his daughter, who had already gone down. As a last resort of meeting them, she took a picture with her son also at the top of the Empire State Building and sends it to Frank.
Realizing that she was at the top, Frank runs back and finds Jiajia and her son. Like in the movie Sleepless in Seattle, the two held hands and the song "What a wonderful world" plays in the background.
For romantics out there, this is a great movie to watch. A bit of fish out of water comedy was delivered just perfect by Tang Wei. A chinese national who went to the US without knowing to speak english. That's a hilarious scenario and we expect a lot scenes with thereon. We kinda was annoyed by her character development as she was perceived to be a bitchy kind of mistress who uses her credit card to careless abandon. Bosses everybody around with her money. This bitchiness stretched a bit too long that we got irked by this fact. Then slowly she softens up just right about she was going broke. Nice segue-way there to being the charming and nice girl that she is when she was really penniless.
When we were annoyed by Jiajia's long rendition of bitchiness, the same thing applies with Frank being the nice guy. He says little in most scenes in the beginning, you don't hear him standing up or explaining himself. He is called DB here as in "dead beat". Always playing second fiddle to his ex-wife and he was always being bossed around. He was always saying yes and hardly he says no.
This long standing bitchiness and being nice guy was maybe necessary to portray the characters so much so that when it was time for a paradigm shift, we can all say "finally". It was fun to watch the two leads starting midway into the film, when clearly they were "made for each other". A lot of cute scenes that will surely have your "kilig" moments seeing them together.
Like Sleepless in Seattle, you should watch this with your love one. A romantic film that you can watch over and over again. I don't know how many times I've watched this movie. it's currently being shown in Netflix so how lucky for you.
Andy Lau stars as the blind detective, Johnston Chong See-Tun in this romantic comedy cop film. He was a former cop and he resigned from the force when he became blind. To earn his keep, he now solves police cold cases for the rewards. At the start of the movie, he is on the heels after an assailant that throws acid off roofs on unknowing pedestrians. Even though he was blind, he can still follow a suspect very well. Even his Chief Inspector friend Szeto Fat-bo (played by Guo Tao) believes in him so much that he asked Goldie Ho Ka-tung (played by Sammi Cheng) to follow him.
When she followed Johnston, they were able to apprehend the suspect and solved a cold case. Seeing how great is Johnston as the blind detective, Ho asks his help in finding a missing person, her childhood friend Minnie. Minnie was missing the night Ho's neighbor left for Brazil. Johnston promised to find Minnie for her and teach her detective skills as well which delight Ho.
While doing Minnie's case, both Johnston and Ho undertook some more cold cases. In one of these cases, Johnston assumed that Minnie was taken by a mentally challenged taxi driver who had a penchant for killing and eating broken-hearted female passengers. Szeto later reported to him that Minnie's body was not among those found in the taxi driver's premises.
Johnston next thought of another scenario. That Minnie was alive and that she was able to catch up with the boy she had a crush on. Minnie was able to reach Brazil and presently is pregnant with that boy. It was also learned that Minnie's genealogy had a history of extreme infatuation so much so that they can kill. In the end, Minnie killed the boy along with his mistress in a fit of jealousy. Johnston unknowingly stumbled upon the crime scene with Minnie and he got injured there, saved by Ho in the nick of time.
So in the end, Johnston was able to solve the missing person case of Minnie.
The movie is a cute romantic comedy involving Johnston and Ho. They look good together on screen and they have a good chemistry. Ho being infatuated immediately with Johnston, who was smitten with another woman which was also shown early in the movie, the Tango Dancer named Tingting (played by Gao Yuanyuan). It was such cute revelation when we found out that Tingting was already married to Szeto, Johnston's best friend. We can't help but root for Ho to be with Johnston.
Story wise, it had a simple plot but with lots of cases thrown in as character development, showing off Johnston's great detective skills. Throw in some sweet moments between the two, it wasn't confusing us the viewers. Andy Lau's performance as the blind detective was great, credible to the fact that we felt that he was really blind. We appreciate though the fact that he didn't wear dark glasses like some blind people we know or see.
Sammi Cheng didn't disappoint either. She delivered the physical comedy part and it was done in good taste, did not exaggerate and she held her part well, at par with that of Andy's. I hope to see other films with her in them soon.
This movie we first saw in YouTube but somehow it was deleted so good thing its on Netflix.
We love watching Hong Kong movies as we believe that they have bold and unique story lines. Expect action packed scenes and emotional overtures, you will be continuously on the edge of your seats trying to see if the twists and turns are well within your expectations. Most of the time they frustrate you how the story turns as they didn't went your way.
The story is between two school friends who took different paths in life. One became a criminal while our lead character became a cop. Early scenes showed the criminal Shing-bong (played by Gordon Lam) being released from prison and was met by his girlfriend Yin Bing (played by Yao Chen). She wanted Shing-bong to turn a new leaf and be a good guy for a change. As they say old habits never die so he went back to the life of crime. With his brain smarts, he knows how to elude his friend Lui Ming-chit (played by Andy Lau). All this he did well much to the gang's delight until Shing-bong wants to be a good father.
He volunteers to be Ming-chit's informant to capture the gang members and have a fresh start with Yin Bing. What transpires next is a firestorm in the city with lots of destruction and mayhem.
The story is so simple yet it had great side stories that makes this film interesting to watch. Emotional build up on all the lead characters is present here and very nicely done. You can see the struggles of Yin Bing trying to reform Shing-bong, the emotional dilemma middle into the film by Shing-bong, and the lengths Ming-chit went through to get his man. The film also manages to squeeze in other side stories that made this a meaty intellectual film that is truly phenomenal. The twists and turns defy expectations in most parts and you would be left thinking how the movie would end.
Currently showing on Netflix, we highly recommend that you watch this for all its worth. Andy Lau and Gordon Lam are two of our loved Hong Kong actors and we love how they perform on screen. And they do look good together here as friends worlds apart.
