When you are into some quirky nice asian comedy movie, you've got to give it to these two. The movie is about two women who came from different government agencies to learned to work together to achieve a similar objective.
Movie revolves around a voice phishing syndicate that victimized one of the heads of a national security agency. He was swindled of USD500,000 and he doesn't want his superiors to know about this. Hoping to get it back, Deputy Department Head Park (played by Jo Jae-yoon), enlists Jang Young-shil (played by kang Ye-won), whom he fired earlier to infiltrate the phishing syndicate. He enlists her outside of the agency thus she's not an authorized agent in the case nor the mission was authorized.
Young-shil thought she's undertaking in an sanctioned mission so she did so brilliantly. Not only did she was hired by the phishing company, she excelled in it as well. Making her very close to its Country Manager, Min-Seok (played by Namkoong Min).
During her mission, she encounters Na Jung-an (played by Hand Chae-ah) an undercover police agent who's mission is also to track down and gather evidence against the phishing syndicate headed by Min-Seok.
Young-shil is not a fully trained operative so she bungles all her approaches but when she was collaborating with Jung-an (a fully trained police undercover), they complement each other. Their team gave much to progress of the mission and to the capture of the syndicate in the end.
The movie story is very light and its not that much cerebral. One can sit down and plunk down in the movie straight forward. Comedy is near slapstick and offers a lot of fish out of water scenes with surprise skills along the way.
Although not been shown in most popular streaming sites, its currently being shown in YouTube. When you want to simply sit down and simply have that needed escape, then add this movie to your asian comedy marathon.
In a world of crime, Hyun-jung (played by Kim Hye-Soo) is tough lady. She crawled herself to be the second top guy in the criminal underworld. Movie starts off strong with a lot of sex and Hyun-jung was taping the whole thing in the hopes of blackmailing who's in the videos.
Their objective to expand their criminal reach and take over businesses to make them legitimate somehow. At this conjuncture, Hyun-jung was already contemplating retirement unknown to her colleagues when the expansion is complete. Meanwhile Sang-hoon (played by Lee Sun-kyun), who's got a fatal attraction to her could not accept that she doesn't fancy him so the bitterness in him begins.
Sang-hoon had other plans for their organization and their top boss along with Hyun-jung disagrees with his vision. This led Sang-hoon to tie up with a government prosecutor, Choi (played by lee Hee-joon) to orchestrate a plan to topple gang boss Kim (played by Choi Moo-sung). Choi who was also a victim in the blackmail scam, tries his best to retrieve the scandalous movie from Hyun-jung.
The movie then goes into hypermode with Hyun-jung trying to evade the clutches of Sang-hoon and Choi. Near the end, it was then discovered that Gang Boss Kim's son, is actually Hyun-jung's son as well. So expect some surprise on the son at the end of the movie.
Honestly, we can't make sense about this movie except that it showed a mother's love. That's it. Although it was shown near the end of movie, this is the thing that endeared to us. This movie is an slow burning ember, and we don't know why some peeps consider this as one of the best movies to date in Korea. It's like a Kill Bill movie plot but only slower.
We can't blame Kim Hye-soo for this as we deemed she was great as the lead here. Even Lee Sun-Kyun whom we see as the lead in Korean TV drama's whom we adored, playing a villain was a stretch for us. It took us a while to accept that he is that SOB character here. We see him a lovable actor then here we are trying to hate him in this movie. He did pull off nicely as a villain here but maybe a few more films in this character might do the trick for him.
We can say the same thing for Lee Hee-joon as the evil prosecutor. He looks so sweet in the beginning, but the story tells it this way and then the story flipped a switched and he became a nasty corrupt government employee. We love him best here as the transition from good to bad in his performance was commendable.
If you come to know of Korean movies as being sweet and romantic, you will have a great surprise with this one. Just focus on the motherly love and some woman empowerment in the movie.
If you grew up watching the Disney animation you will say that it was a classic style of a movie. So why make a live action adaptation of it? We don't know exactly why but lets see how this 2017 pans out for us movie goers.
The story begins with a old beggar that arrives at the castle while the prince was having a ball. The beggar then offers a rose to the prince in exchange for shelter from the storm for which he refuses. The beggar then turns into an enchantress, seeing through the prince's heart devoid of compassion, he was transformed into a beast and his loyal subjects in household items. The whole castle was cloaked with something and its memories with the townsfolk was wiped clean as well. No one then knew that a castle existed among their midst, sealing it, the prince and his subjects within.
Many years later we see Belle (played by Emma Watson), in the town of Villeneuve, dreaming of adventure. She regularly wards off Gaston, a full of confidence ex soldier, who has a liking to her. He is not Belle's type as he is arrogant and rude and kind of narcissistic. We have the next scene Belle's father Maurice (played by Kevin Kine) off to attend a convention when he got lost in the forest and stumbles upon the hidden castle. He was then imprisoned by the Beast (played by Dan Stevens), his horse returned home, alarming Belle. She then went after him to the castle to find him locked up in a dungeon. She managed to exchange herself for her father, so she was stuck in the castle while Maurice was allowed to go home.
Belle wasn't treated as a prisoner and was even invited to have dinner at the ballroom. Being an adventure, she couldn't help herself by exploring the castle and she wanders into the west wing where she saw a rose. The rose that tells until when the curse of the Beast will be lifted. She was discovered by the Beast and she was frightened by his actions, proceeds to run away from the castle. On her way out of the grounds, she met a pack of wolves but Beast was able to rescue her, albeit with some bites and bruises. Belle helped nurse his wounds and somehow the two had been talking ever since.
All this talking led to a romantic dinner and somehow everything was going well when suddenly Belle discovers (through a magic mirror) that his Father was being held to be sent off to an asylum. She asks Beast to let her leave to see him and he obliged, taking with him the magic mirror as a keepsake. Seeing his father locked up, she confronts the townsfolk and confirms that the Beast exists by using the magic mirror. Gaston realizes that Belle had feelings for the Beast and he got jealous. He then entices the townsfolk to hold Belle together with her father and they should kill the Beast.
Left at the carriage, Belle manages to escape and returns to the castle. She arrives just in time to see Gaston manhandling Beast who seem to have lost his spirit to fight. When he saw Belle came back, he was invigorated and fights with Gaston and won. The Beast spared Gaston's life and starts to reunite with Belle when Gaston shoots at the Beast fatally wounding him. After shooting him, Gaston fell to his death. The Beast then dies as the last petal from the rose falls and all the servants became inanimate.
Belle then tells of how he loved the Beast and the enchantress came back and undoes the curse given to the Beast. Beast then recovers and turns back into a prince, his servants turned back into human beings and the castle was restored magically. As the curse was lifted, all the hidden memories of the castle came back to the townsfolk and realized there was a castle after all. Belle and the Prince then hosted another ball and they lived happily ever after.
The original movie was a classic and it was well written and we were fine already with it. We were glad that the live action adaptation did some justice in making this film. The music that made the first one a well loved movie are still here plus some new ones and added scenes.
They didn't copy the original film literally and we are glad that they put a different spin into it. Especially the love angle. In the original they had Belle teaching Beast a lot of things like manners and such, as if he was a child. It was this experience that made Belle love him, but in this one, the Beast maybe rude and arrogant but he still have the qualities of a prince, a learned individual with love for knowledge and have a penchat for books. Qualities that endears to Belle and this is the reason she started to like and eventually love the Beast.
The story telling was great here, it was not slow, nor it was too fast. Dialogues were on point and crisp making for an entertaining watch. Actors chosen were a match with their characters and we love to loathe at Gaston played by Luke Evans. He really makes your blood boil and would wish Belle teaches him a lesson. Kevin Kline as Maurice also held his performance well even with a limited screentime.
There were other actors that surprised us like Ewan McGregor was here as Lumiere, Stanley Tucci as Maestro Cadenza, Ian McKellan as Cogsworth and Emma Thompson as Mrs Potts. Wow what a cast. Them alone is enough already to make us watch this movie many times over.
The original was a classic, and this one? Only time will tell as it has all the makings of a classic.
Should you want to watch this, you can either buy its DVD or BlueRay or purchase it through Youtube for Php370 (standard) or Php550 for HD (Prices were as of this writing).
A top notch private bodyguard Michael Bryce (played by Ryan Reynolds) is famous in the industry until his client Takashi Kurosawa got killed while being escorted. He lost his triple A rated company and still manages to survive by taking weird individuals as clients.
During this time, a ruthless dictator, Valdislav Dukhovich (played by Gary Oldman) is being tried for crimes against humanity. A number of witnesses already have testified against him but the court needs a more solid evidence to prosecute him. The prosecution's last important witness will be the well known hitman Darius Kincaid (played by Samuel L Jackson). He agreed to testify against Dukhovich in exchange for the release of his wife Sonia (played by Salma Hayek) from her prison in the Netherlands.
After signing the needed forms, Kincaid must be escorted to the Hague for the trials. Tasked to lead the transfer is Agent Roussel of Interpol. She then lead an armed escort to bring Kincaid from London to the Hauge when Dukhovich's men ambushed them. All of the escorts got killed except for Agent Roussel and Kincaid who managed to escape and reach a safehouse.
Quick thinking on the part of Agent Roussel made her realize that there's a mole at the Interpol so he calls in her ex-boyfriend Bryce. She then asks him to bring Kincaid to the Hague. It seemed that the two had some nasty run-ins prior to this meeting so a violent confrontation was inevitable. Somehow they managed to agree on a truce and went on their way to The Hague.
It seemed that Dukhovich's men are very good in tracking Kincaid and the two had to ditch their transport everytime. In their last confrontation, Bryce learned that Kincaid was carrying one of Dukhovich henchman's (whom he killed during the London ambush) phone. This was the reason why they were easily tracked. With the phone destroyed, they were able to hitch hike their way to a ferry that will take them to Amsterdam. While there, Kincaid slipped away from Bryce to put a flower on a window sill that can be seen from Sonia's prison window.
This irked Bryce and while he tried to retrieve Kincaid, he learned that the latter killed Kurosawa that angered him more. Bryce then leaves Kincaid on his own since the latter doesn't listen to him on matters of his safety. While he leaves him on his own, Dukhovich's men (who were waiting for him at Sonia's prison) spotted Kincaid and a chase ensued. All these were happening behind Bryce's back, literally behind his back. He can hear the screams and the commotion behind him yet he refrains from helping and rescuing Kincaid.
After a few instances more, Bryce decides to help and joins in the car chase for Kincaid. He follows Dukhovich's men and eliminates them one by one until he was captured. Before Byrce could have been tortured, he was rescued by Kincaid and they are on their way to The Hague again. Along the highway, they were again spotted and a car chase again ensues. Bad guys were no match against the two and barely managed to reach the international court by mere seconds.
Kincaid then proceeds to testify to the court his dealings with the dictator. His testimony includes how we was invited to Dukhovich's office to assign him to assassinate one of the dictator's political rival. While still thinking whether to accept the job or not, he was a witness to a massacre lead by the dictator. Kincaid was able to take some pictures and later he showed them to the court.
Seeing that the odds are against him, Dukhovich then instructs a henchman to initiate a rescue plan. A truck laden with explosives were to sent to the court house to serve as distraction. While the truck was on its way, Dukhovich admits to his crimes and pleads to the court that his actions were justified in running his own country.
During his speech, the truck bomb explodes and created chaos at the court house. Dukhovich was able to overpower his guards and proceeds to escape to the roof where a helicopter was waiting to land. Kincaid followed him to the roof and was able to destroy the helicopter and kicks Dukhovich off the roof to his death.
Kincaid was again brought back to prison but broke out months later to celebrate his wedding anniversary with Sonia. The end or so it seemed.
This movie is action packed in every turn almost like a MIchael Bay movie sans the massive explosions. They have some explosions here, a lot of killed people mostly bad guys and a number of bromance moments between Kincaid and Bryce. The movie had a short character development between them but it was enough to establish bad blood at the beginning. The banter that followed made for an entertaining watch and their differences turned into a beautiful relationship thats akin to being brothers.
They may have lived their lives on the opposite sides of the law but they later found out they had similar ideals. This made them bond and able to thwart all the henchmen that were thrown at them. Both had the ability to survive on their own but it was their combined skills that was truly remarkable. Both gave us a dose of comedy, action and drama needed to keep the movie as entertaining and fun to watch. There maybe a number of cliche's and one liners but it was necessary to achieve their desired effect. Expect a lot of swearing too. It's won't be Samuel Fu%$^^& L Jackson without it. As to Ryan Reynolds, expect some sarcastic jokes thrown while flashing a boyish grin that could swoon over the young movie-going women.
Both are assassins in their own right and truly made a killing at the box office.
If you noticed we review mostly hollywood made movies but we do also like asian ones. This film is called "This Is Not What I Expected" which was released way back in 2017.
A romantic comedy film by Derek Hui, starring Takeshi Kaneshiro (Lu Jin) and Dongyu Zhou (Gu Sheng Nan). The story is set in Shanghai China about Lu Jin, CEO of conglomerate that buys up hotel chains for its business. He went to the hotel where Gu Shengnan is working as chef, hoping to buy the entire hotel. Lu Jin has a particular taste in food and he is a picky eater. He throws up food if the taste doesn't suit him. He was so unsatisfied with the hotel's food that he wanted to check out already until the servers brought him a dish prepared by Gu Sheng Nan. He loved the dish so much that he stayed for a longer period of time to savor Nan's food daily. All this time, Jin doesn't know that Nan was cooking these delicious dishes served him. During start of the film, these two have not so good encounters between them so this made their situation cute. Until the time they both found out about each other.
For the love of food they worked well between them that Jin couldn't live without Nan's cooking. It came to a point that Jin would having dinner at Nan's home and even sleeping there, separately of course. During these stay overs, both emotions changed and Jin being a perfectionist would hide his emotions while Nan was starting to show signs of interest on our Jin.
To add twist to the mix, another chef was introduced andi it was Jin's personal chef for 7 years came back from vacation. A this time,Nan thought that she was special to Jin, that only her cooking was best for him. She was devastated and heart broken. To add more emotion, Jin had to fire everyone in the kitchen staff of the hotel after buying it, Nan included.
Everything changed again between the two. Nan hated Jin and Jin missed her. He asked his Dad to have breakfast with him but he did not have a great time. He then asked his personal chef of seven years to dine with him, only to be turned down. She informs him that during those 7 years of preparing food for him, she only prepares for one, for Jin only. As like all romantic films, the boy tries to find the girl and would beg for her love, which Jin did. Fast forward thereafter, girl accepts boy in the end and they lived happily ever after presumably.
The story line is cute and it had a lot of scenes that established the Mysophobia (fear of germs) and strict business attitude of our male lead in contrast to the messy and emotional life of the female lead. Bringing these two personalities and attitudes together would surely make a clash of great proportions which you will like in the movie. The eventual working out of the two will make for a cute moment or moments between the two that will surely bring a smile to the viewer.
Just don't be technical about the cooking as our female lead looked so young to be chef to be entrusted with much responsibility in the kitchen. Her acting was cute, did I say cute many times over? Yes, she is cute and she acts convincingly like a young naive woman which he portrays in the movie. Takeshi our male lead is perfect with his serious looks as our shrewd businessman. We liked his performance here but something sparked us with his features. We know we have seen him from another film and we couldn't place it while we watched this. After searching for his name, we found out where we saw him last. He was Captain Jin (same name? LOL) in "Making of House of Flying Daggers (2004). We also later found out he was in Red Cliff (2008)and Red Cliff II (2009). With these impressive credentials, he is just a match to our female Zhou also holds 34 credits as an actress and 1 for being a producer. Holding a number of credits in both movies and TV, she really impressed on us with her acting here in this movie.
We found this movie on YouTube, yes its a full movie complete with English subtitles so we included it herein for your viewing pleasure. We hope you will like it like we did.
