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.
A Chinese movie that's equal to a Hollywood in grandeur for us was this movie, Hero. It was our first time to watch one as grand and very epic-ky with Jet Li in the lead.
Usually we write in a plot or a synopsis on the movies we watch and review but this time we won't. We want you to watch this one, period. This movie is uncharacteristic of a Chinese movie, maybe just the Kung-Fu stunts, but other than that we were blown away with the story telling.
Although it was just a narration between the Emperor and our Hero, the lines and discussion was essential to the story that we were glued to our seats watching this. Aside from their conversation, the fight scenes were nicely done and choreographed. With a huge budget allotted for this film, money was not spared in production design and costumes.
They also splurged on who's who in Chinese cinema particularly of the martial arts genre. Aside from Jet Li, we have Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Donnie Yen and Zhang Ziyi. Talk about a stellar casting this alone will make you want to watch this movie.
With a film like this, we really had an awakening on the Chinese movie industry.
We can place this movie alongside the other films we love like, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (the first movie) and the House of Flying Daggers. So if you like an action movie with a neck deep story line, get hold a copy of this movie.
Does one person really looks on the outside? Our lead here is Kang Hanna (played by Kim Ah-joong). She's a plus sized part time phone sex call center agent and ghost singer for a popular singer Ammy (played by Ji Seo-yun). She's got a huge crush on director Han Sang-jun (played by Joo Jin-mo) and she tries her best to be noticed. But then there was an instance that she overhears a conversation between Ammy and Sang-jun that she was just being used for her voice and this hurt Hanna so much. She decided to end her life that night but was pre-empted by a call from her phone sex regulars who happened to be a famous plastic surgeon. She begged him to transform her from weight loss and plastic surgery operations on her whole body.
She went on a one year hiatus without telling anyone that she would be undergoing such an arduous procedure. Ammy and Sang-jun were trying to find her as The former's career is on the line without her but to no avail.
A year past and when we see Hanna again, she turned into a slender and incredibly beautiful woman. Even her best friend Park Jung-min (played by Kim Hyun-sook), a back up singer, didn't even recognize her. Hanna wants to go back to her previous work as Ammy's ghost singer and with Jung-min's help, she auditions as Jenny in front of Sang-jun and Ammy. Impressed with her singing, instead of being hired as a ghost singer for Ammy, she was awarded a contract.
Jenny's first single "Maria" became a hit and they were having celebrations when Ammy bring's Hanna's (Jenny) father into the party. To keep her new identity as Jenny, she ignores her father much to the disgust of her best friend Jung-min. Even with her secret, Sang-jun was still able to discover that she really is Hanna. He tells her that they will still use her new identity Jenny and will still continue with her planned big concert.
With Ammy's doing, she tries her best to prevent Jenny's concert from happening. Even threatening to divulge her secret to the public and the music company executives were scared with the scandal it would create. Sang-jun would have none of it and still wants to push with the concert.
During her opening act, Jenny's father went in front of the stage and started dancing with her. A few security personnel accosted her father and she stopped singing. What happened thereafter was a big revelation of sorts. She confessed in front of the crowd that she isn't Jenny but is Kang Hanna, a plus sized ghost singer and she revealed that with the new identity, she couldn't remember who Hanna was. With Sang-jun's help, he played Hanna's old singing videos on the big screen. Her fans moved by her confession accepts who she was and began chanting "its okay".
The following day "Jenny" was a has been, with records and posters being pulled out from stores. But Hanna was a big hit, and she became a famous singer. All her Jenny records and posters were replaced by Hanna and her fans loved her.
From the title itself, you will immediately have an idea of how the story will be told. A plus sized girl falling in love with a handsome guy, then thinking that she won't be noticed, tries her best to slim down and undergo the knife to be beautiful. She thinks the guy is superficial and would only go with beautiful women. So expect a lot of situations that will show her oversized figure and what happens after the transformation.
Having said that, we did not anticipate how the story would be told beautifully and cleanly. Character development even with mostly comedic rendition would endear to us and hold us to an emotional state in the end. What we thought was a predictable story line gave us some roller coaster rides midway and a big drop was shown near the end. That drop gave us tears in our eyes as we felt Hanna's pain and vindication.
Kim Ah-joong really was the driving force in the movie and thank god she was spectacular here. She gave us a performance that would endear us for a long time. Joo Jin-mo played second fiddle here and he gave a decent acting for us. Wasn't the same level as Ah-joong, but it wasn't bad either. He gave us a smoldering presence that we can feel him from start to finish. A great support to our Ah-joong.
Another thing we liked with the movie was the presence of a lot of celebrities who did cameos along the way. We have Lee Beom-soo as a taxi driver, Kim Yong-gun as the company CEO, Lee Won-jong as a fortune teller, Ryu Seung-soo as a traffic officer.
To add credence to the movie, this one got lots of awards not only for Ah-joong but for the rest of the production. To kick you more in the butt, Ah-joong sang most of the songs here. Really, she sang 5 out of 11 from the movie soundtrack. This girl can sing.
So better watch this movie and add this in your playlist. Currently showing in Youtube, simply click on the thumbnail below.
How can you make a movie about a red couch? This movie tackles lives of our Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW) in Taiwan and it was a great one to be discussed much more to make one a movie.
We have two main characters Dado Tagalog (played by Bayani Agbayani) and Manuel Dela Cruz (played by Epie Quizon) who came to Taiwan to work in a bicycle factory. During their stay in Taiwan, Dado misses his family back home while he has been estranged with another Filipina in Taiwan Anna (played by Meryll Soriano). Manuel meanwhile is still single but was bewitched with Cecilia's beauty (played by Alessandra De Rossi). Both had to let go of their love interests in Taiwan then comes this red couch. A red couch which was left behind by a Taiwanese couple since it does not go well with their new home's motif.
Our two leads found this red couch on the sidewalk and decides to bring it home to their accommodation or dormitory. Since the couch is huge, it won't fit in the public bus, renting a truck to bring it cost a lot of money so they were relegated to simply carrying it home. Then the adventure begins.
The journey home with that red couch tested the duo's relationship and it put them in different situations, some comedic some serious moments. In the end, they simply left the red couch and went home by bus.
In the last scene we see both are back in the Philippines and wonder about putting up a business together instead.
A simple movie, story line so thin, but rich in situations that mirrors the lives of our OFW's in Taiwan. We wonder how refreshing the take was done on this film only to find out that Taiwanese director had a hand in this movie. The approach was different and thank God, the production wasn't Filipino. Not that we don't trust a Filipino production, but having a foreign production do this gave this movie a fresh rendition and it showed a truer Filipino life in Taiwan. We were expecting that certain Pinoy stereotypes will be shown but there none.
The OFW's were fairly presented and the movie was entertaining if you ask us. Its a must watch and you can catch this one on Netflix. The latter promised to show more Filipino movies in their content and kudos to Netflix.
We admire Gong Yoo in his portrayals in The Goblin and Coffee Prince in the Korean dramas that we like to see him in a movie setting. Here we find him playing seconds to Kim Sun-a (who plays that police detective Chun Jae-in) who works undercover always as a highschooler.
In most parts in the film, Jae-in infiltrates a school to befriend a daughter of a notorious gangster. As the gangster is in hiding from his gangster enemies, Jae-in tries to protect the daughter Cha Seung Hee (played by Nam Sang-mi) and possibly extract more information about the father's activities. This wasn't as simple as she thought it would be as Seung Hee has a reclusive type personality. She knows her father's activities and she disapproves of it. So much so that she is a recluse, never wants to make friends in school, making Jae-in's mission a bit difficult. At the same time with Jae-in's arrival comes Kang No-young (played by Gong Yoo). Nothing much was shown with No-young's intentions in the early parts of the movie except that he also is interested in Seung Hee and both of them live across Seung Hee's residence. Eventually Seung Hee's warms up to Jae-in and they are best of friends. Meanwhile other characters pop in to create a stir in the story. Another agent cop swoops in as a teacher and a motorcycle riding character zips in to protect Seung Hee's father. The latter wears a helmet always so you can't discern who it was. Later on Jae-in suspects No-young is that motorcycling individual. Like in most story plots, all must come in the end. Seung Hee was kidnapped to bring in his father where a duel with the rival boss was inevitable. Also Jae-in teams up with No-young who was revealed as a gang member protecting Seung Hee's father. The team was able to subdue the whole gang and both Seung Hee and her father was rescued. No-young being a gangster, he escaped just in time the police arrived, must to the dismay of Jae-in whom she had started to have feelings for. Although she was wary of that kind of relationship since she is already mature compared to No-young. Several months later in another of Jae-in's assignments, she pretends to be a nun to capture a criminal. In the ensuing chase, No-young shows up and helps her catch the criminal. A kiss was forthcoming but Jae-in had to be sure, that No-young was just a youthful looking man. The whole film is a feel good movie and the storyline is so thin if you ask me. Although not original in concept, it was still refreshing to see this with both Gong Yoo and Kim Sun-a. The latter was a bit over the top during the first few minutes of the film, but somehow she mellowed down and came back to earth and then we loved her. Gong Yoo came much in the middle and his presence is always overshadowed with that of Sun-a. But just a smile from Gong Yoo will bring him back on screen again. Both by the way looked good together but a romantic relationship only started to be felt past midway. Not much situations were given to offer that cute moments between the two as the story line calls for the protection of that gangster's daughter. A lovely film if you ask us, just a little thin but its not bad either. For an asian film made in 2005, this is already watchable. We are wary of early asian films but this one will not disappoint. Currently showing on YouTube, of course not High Definition, but best of all its free.
We love that actor Daniel Henney when we saw him X-Men origins: Wolverine and in that another asian movie Shanghai Calling. Here he plays an expat Robin Heiden assigned to a Korean branch where he meets up with Min-June (played by Uhm Jung-hwa). Their first encounter was coincidental as Min-June was playing hooky when suddenly she figures in a car bumping incident with Robin. The latter speaks in English while the former feigns she doesn't know english, creating confusion between them. Unknown to both, they would again find each other as both were working in the same office. Robin being the new country manager where Min-june works.
A classic tale of awkwardness befalls our two leads as Min-june is always mired with her boyfriends while Robin tries his best to educate her in the game of love. In the process of her education, both finds themselves falling in love with each other.
This is a romantic comedy so surely you will find some cute moments between the two. The clash of two cultures is apparent here as the Americanized Robin mingles with Korean Min-june. The perception of incompatibility is to be expected as this movie gives no surprise there. What endears this movie to us is the comedic and acting prowess of Uhm Jung-hwa as that out of luck in love Min-June. She really brings the character to life and even if some of the scenes might not be realistic as dictated by the script, she pulls us back to be entertained by her performance.
Daniel Henney is great as that corporate stiff boss who tries very much to "help" Min-june. His performance was nice here but if you have watched his other asian flick Shanghai Calling, you will find it equal to that. So equal in fact that you might think the other was a sequel. LOL.
Story pace was done nicely, a nice blend of fast and slow moments, mostly scenes were comedic and cute, but it also offers some drama somewhere in the middle. The story line might offer you no surprises however it does give us that zing in some parts of the film.
We recommend this movie to those who love romantic comedies, best to watch this with popcorn. We don't know if this is shown in streaming services but you can watch a low definition version in YouTube. Simply click on the thumbnail below to watch it for free.
Finally we get to see a film by that lovable star in the tv series "Princess Hours" and "Coffee Prince", Yoon Eun-Hye. She plays Han Min-joo, the class captain who's a boxer and tough mannered lady in school. The story though is not about her, its about the legend, Seven cutter, who's a tough guy known to be unbeaten in fights in different schools. That legend is Jung Han-soo played by Ahn Jae-Mo.
Movie starts out with Han-soo tranferring to the school where Han Min-joo is. The name of Han-soo is quite a legend so when the students learned about his arrival, everybody was scared of him. He was given an icy welcome and the tough guys in that school gave him a hard time at first. It turned out that Han-soo dislikes confrontation and tries his best to be peaceful. However his actions sometimes were misconstrued and the students believes he is that tough guy, Seven Cutter.
Being a teenager in high school, Han-soo gets into a situation with Min-joo and she challenges him to a fight. Being a pacifist of sorts, he escapes the fight by telling Min-joo that he loves her and she believed him. All the while he really likes Lee Yoon-ah (played by Han Da-min) the school crush, with a diva like attitude. They became an item while Han-soo still likes Yoon-ah.
When Min-joo found out that he likes Yoon-ah, she broke up with him. In her disgust, she wandered off and was kidnapped by some thugs whom Han-soo defeated early on, using her as bait. This time also Han-soo realizes he loves Min-joo and went after her. He defeats the bad guys and both are together again.
If you like highschool comedies, that are composed of comedy skits, punchlines and slapstick, then this movie is for you. There are a lot of those here and I wondered how I was to sit down and watch this in its entirety. The plot should have been simple but its not, as it had a lot of twists and turns.
At first we believed that there were two Han-soo's. Because the lead character tells everyone that he was not that legendary "seven cutter". He acts like a coward and abhors fighting, uses his wits and words to get out of confrontation, and even runs away. So we believed it then that he was not that legend to begin with. Then there was a situation wherein he divulges his secret to Min-joo but we don't believe him as we thought we was just making stories to impress her. It turned out that he was great in fighting and that he is the legendary Seven Cutter.
Let us be clear that the reason we wanted to watch this was because of Yoon Eun-Hye. We love her in Princess Hours and Coffee Prince thus the fascination for The Legend of the Seven Cutter'. Her cuteness with the TV series however runs thin when it came with this movie. What you see in her on TV is what you can see here. So her acting will not be surprisingly new. I can't blame her as all the titles mentioned here were done in 2006 and 2007. We will surely find a movie around the 2011 onwards era to find out if she developed more in the acting department.
The movie is not about her however, its about Jung Han-soo played by Ahn Jae-Mo. Judging from his filmography, this movie is second to his last done. His last movie made was in 2006 as per wikipedia. All performances after 2006 were all on TV. His acting here was a bit quirky but effective. He was the reason why we thought there were two characters in the movie. It may or may not be intentional on his part but his portrayal of his character led us to believe of two different Han-Soos. Or maybe it was the script?
The script is not original for us, the idea of one student who escapes his past, starts anew in another school, is not new to us. In as much as he tries to be a new person, eventually his past catches up on him as his adversary was able to track him and forces him for a rematch and possibly get revenge. The script offers less on this story line but offers more of comedy situations. There were a lot of skits that prey on youth shenanigans that we find amusing for most parts. This situations are distractions that momentarily we are thrown off from the story.
This is movie is a feel good movie, and with a bowl of popcorn will offer momentary entertainment. It won't offer you fine dining but will do offer fast food instead. Good to watch if you don't have anything else on your movie night, or if you haven't paid yet your Netflix or Amazon Prime account. Click on the thumbnail below and watch it on YouTube.
We really love Yifei Liu of Mulan fame that we dug up this 2014 film of hers with no less than Rain as his leading man. Yifei stars here as Xing Lu, a flight attendant at the beginning of the movie and bumps into Xu Chengxun (played by Rain). This was in Vienna and for both characters this was supposed to be just a passing thing until they meet up again in Shanghai.
Xing left her job and went back to Shanghai to find her rich boyfriend being wed at a hotel. She was so heartbroken that she tried to kill herself by jumping off an apartment building. It so happened that Xu was passing along and saw her at the top. He went up and tried to reason with her but both fell into an airbag that the Fire Department had set up below.
Both then started a friendship and Xu was constantly visiting Xing at her coffee shop. Xing then found out that Xu is an artist and she loved his work. Xu was barely scratching a living and it was Xing who gave him inspiration in his next paintings. All was going well until Xu proposes marriage to Xing of which she declined. Not only that she declined, Xu then later found her in a hotel with her rich ex-boyfriend who earlier got married in the film. This was devastating to Xu so he went back to his mother, who was uber rich. Xu is an heir to a vast rich empire and did not share the same view with his mother and he lived off his own means, leaving his studies in London to pursue art in Vienna. With Xing gone, thinking that greed came upon her, he accepts his life of fame and fortune.
In one of his exhibits, he instructs to sell the paintings for cheap but some gallery in Vienna bought it for 15 Million (Yuan or Dollars we don't know). Xu was angered by this considering he just want to sell the paintings for cheap, he went to Vienna to find the buyer, and he found Xing.
Xu still hated Xing and he said some harsh words to her, not knowing it was her who bought the paintings. While he raced away from Xing, she followed her running. Xu later realized that he still loves her went back to an empty apartment, to find his paintings neatly tucked away in the corner. Meanwhile Xing was held up while trying to catch Xu, and was stabbed. Even with the wound, she ran to find Xu only to be bumped by Xu's car throwing her into a river. She was taken to the hospital and she survived. Xu then returns all the fame and fortune to her mom just to be with Xing in the end.
First off, we had reservations on the performance of Yifei after seeing her in So Young 2 (Never Gone), even though we really loved her. We also have seen her in Forbidden Kingdom and the Four franchise. Her acting in So Young and in some of those mentioned wasn't that endearing enough for us that she might do the same here in For Love or Money. We were wrong. Although some critics (yes we read some of them) didn't like this film, they may be right but somehow we disagreed. We are are hopeful romantics here and we really love Yifei's performance here. So much so we think this was her best performance ever. She cried a lot here and her eyes were filled with emotions that we were taken by these scenes. Best acting for her as of yet here in this movie.
Rain as Xu Chengxun, the rich heir who abhors his fortune delivered a fine performance as well. He tried crying also as much as Yifei, but we don't like crying, it didn't set well with us but in scenes where he tries to impress Xing, there we can feel that she loved her very much. Great job these two gave us and almost, yes almost, we can see a chemistry between the two in this film. We say almost because Yifei for us has to improve her role as a "lover", yes we like her crying, but some scenes require an amorous approach to a scene. Rain had no problem in this department, only the crying part. So they complement each other in this film. LOL.
We would like also to note the decent performance of Joan Chen as Xu's rich and manipulative mother. She really is great playing the villain of sorts and this one is easy for her.
Storywise its your age old rich guy pretending to be poor to find his love, while poor girl is bought off by the rich mother hoping to give frustration to the rich son who pretends to be poor. Nothing new here and almost you can see where the story will lead you. We hope there were some surprises but nothing jumped out from nowhere to interest us. Thanks to the story telling and of the actors, we have a good film if you ask us.
The story or script was well written but one might be confused at the first an hour and 10 minutes of the movie. There were some flashbacks, side stories that muddle the story, and that only at this point we really knew what was happening. It is as if you can watch the first 15 minutes then skip to that point and you might be able to catch up to the story without missing a beat. Anyway, it was still a good watch the first part, but keep your emotions in check as you might want to fast forward it a bit. Which we did in our first time watching it.
As of this writing, the full movie is shown on YouTube and just click on the thumbnail below.
In celebration of our country's independence, we will feature our very first review of a Filipino movie. We haven't done one since its rare to find that's worthy of our time. We wish not to downplay the industry but we wish it to elevate its standards so that we can export our creative products around the world. As of now, we can be proud to showcase Heneral Luna.
To know our history we have been under Spanish rule for 333 years and through the revolution, we almost won but was pre-empted by Spain, they sold our country to the Americans instead of accepting defeat. With the Americans coming in, then first president Emilio Aguinaldo (played by Mon Confiado), heads a cabinet meeting. They are thinking how they will handle the influx of the Americans, and some of the Ilustrados headed by Felipe Buencamino, suggests for an American alliance. while General Antonio Luna (played by John Arcilla) wanted not waste time but instead prepare for war against the Americans. Filipino troops were barred from entering Intramuros during the mock battle of Manila (as per the Treaty of Paris) so that Filipinos would see the Americans liberating us from Spain. General Antonio sees its as another imperialistic ruler in America simply replacing Spain governing over the Philippines.
Their fear of the Americans were founded when Filipino troops were fired upon in Sta. Mesa and that started the Filipino American War. Americans then proceeded to conquer not only Intramuros and Sta Mesa, they also included San Juan, Paco and Pandacan in a timely manner.
General Luna then in command of the Filipino forces engages the Americans in different parts of Luzon, while also battling insubordinate generals under his reign. It seemed that generals particular of that under the Kawit Brigade do not follow him but instead follow only direct orders from President Aguinaldo. This angers General Luna and relentlessly fights them trying to instill discipline in them. All these are for naught as President Aguinaldo coddles the generals and cabinet members that General Luna comes in tangled with.
Seeing that he no longer could fight the enemy with one hand tied behind his back, he informs President Aguinaldo of his desire to resign as head of the Philippine forces for which the latter denied. He was persuaded to return to his post and to continue to fight against the Americans.
Due to his arrogance and strictness, it is not surprising that General Luna had a growing number of enemies, so in an efforts to silence him, a telegram supposedly sent from President Aguinaldo reached him, inviting him for a cabinet re organization in Cabanatuan. When he arrived there, Aguinaldo was not around and this irked General Luna. He never knew that this was just a ruse to lure him out and assassinate him. He was killed there along with one of his trusted aide by the Kawit brigade headed by Captain Janolino (whom earlier Luna had arrested and demoted but was reinstated by Aguinaldo).
General Luna and his trusted aide were later buried with honors by Aguinaldo. Ironically, the men who buried him were the same ones who killed him. Later investigation on the incident exonerate the Kawit brigade and his killers were never found.
President Aguinaldo denies his involvement in the assassination calling the general ,his most brilliant and most capable one. General McArthur and Otis of the American forces branded him as a worthy adversary and that the Filipinos killed the only general they had.
The movie was based on historical records but filled in with fiction to make it more cinematic. It may have imaginary scenes in it but it was done tastefully. A well written script with colorful dialogues and the use of proper Filipino language made for a great watch for us to see. We sometimes see other films use deep Filipino words that do not relate well with the person saying it or it simply does not make sense in using them. Here it was not over the top and it was just appropriate, for the scene and for the actor speaking them.
We also applaud the production team who supervised the selection of the actors to be included in Heneral Luna. They hired actors based on merit and that they were suited for the characters they are going to play with. Good thing this wasn't produced by a television company as they tend to hire only actors under their wing and not on the basis of merit (we saw one period piece but we stopped watching after 5 minutes). For what they did with Heneral Luna, we liked the casting and we liked all the characters so much you have to watch it so that you will know what we are extolling about.
John Arcilla was in our opinion the best choice to play the general. His stature, his performance was top notch to say the least here in the movie. We may have not known much about the general, personality wise in our history classes, but we can relate well with his rendition of the character. We simply know that the Luna brothers had a penchant for being hot headed individuals so outbursts of the general is not far from our imagination. This emotional explosions by John Arcilla was spot on.
As the movie has been adapted a number of times from the original script done for a television series that didn't materialize. We laud the efforts done, it was adapted from a television series to a full feature film, translated from English to formal Tagalog, and finally the words were tweaked further and modernized a bit for the modern audience. We appreciate that all these efforts were done beautifully.
The scenes in the film also was a mirror of the modern times so it endears to the viewes as well. It tackles how politics manipulate our country's direction and of how greed lords over sovereignty affects policy making in the higher echelons of government. These things are happening right now making this film relatable. Giving a viewer some lessons from our history hoping to raise awareness in our present times. This may or not be the intention of its creators but somehow this is the message we can see after watching the film.
We like Heneral Luna as a film who can instill love and pride for our Inang Bayan (motherland) and that no one is above the law and follows the law in a strict manner. He abhors doing favors and he dislikes people who put selfish interests over one's country.
We do hope that more Filipinos see this film and we are pushing everyone to watch this especially during the time we celebrate our day of independence. Currently showing in Netflix and YouTube.
Whenever we see Shu Qi, usually its in the action genre, so we were surprised that we find her here in A Beautiful Life, a romantic drama movie about a cop and a "bad girl".
Shu Qi, playing Li Peiru, starts off getting drunk in the movie and immediately she meets up with our cop Fan Zhendong (played by Liu Ye). On said occassion Zhendong already took a liking to Peiru but she's very much romantically linked to his very much married boss so he takes some distance. Peiru's relationship with her boss then ends when she found out that he was cheating on her.
She had to move to another apartment, jobless and Zhendong helps her from time to time. He even helped her fund her business that ended up badly even before it officially began. Feeling bad, she left Beijing to go back to Hong Kong with her family. While there she realizes she's in love with Zhendong and returns to Beijing to find him.
Meanwhile Zhendong realized that he had a debilitating condition that causes him to be forgetful. This made him lose his job as a police officer and subsequently sold his house in Beijing and move to another house. This is where Peiru lost track of him.
A friend of Zhendong then tells Peiru of his condition and she was able to find him. In their conversation, even without professing their love for each other, Zhendong tried his best to drive away Peiru but still she wanted to stay and they got married.
They had a baby and Zhendong was taken to the hospital for a head injury he sustained while trying to run after a robber. He was in a coma for a long time with Peiru always by his side, that made her sick and herself hospitalized. When she woke up, she finds Zhendong watching her from her side of the bed and he said sorry if he made her worry.
Seldom we watch asian movies with heavy drama as they tend to have slow pace in story telling and they sometimes drag to a point that I shut off the TV or look for another movie to watch. This one is no exception. It had a slow pace however it didn't drag at all. Each scene was important and tied well with other parts of the film. Character development here was a lot and we can relate not only to the lead characters but to the supports as well, like Zhendong's younger brother Zhencong (played by Tian Liang) and his mute wife Xiaowan (played by Feng Danying).
The characters were knitted beautifully together that we cried midway. It was when Xiaowan together with her mom visited the Fang brothers (with Peiru present). Xiaowan's mom informs Zhendong that his brother asked Xiaowan to marry him. Knowing his brother's condtion, he promises the mother that he will take care of both Zhencong and Xiaowan that delighted her. In this scene we had seen lots of love, like a mother's love for Xiaowan, Zhengdong's love for his brother, and the love between Zhencong and Xiaowan. She was mute yes, but in Zhencong's world, she was just normal. This was echoed later in the film by Peiru, she cried during this moment and realizes that after feeling all this love in the room, she felt that she had neither this love with her. It was during this time that both Peiru and Zhendong had feelings for each other but didn't profess it with each other. This made Peiru very sad.
Story is wonderfully written, same with the dialogues. They went well hand in hand creating for a nicely crafted movie. A story of unconditional love with ample twists and turns and have many heavy moments that one will get emotional for sure. We held back the tears but had to let go with the scene we mentioned in the prior section.
We have never seen Shu Qi performed like this before and we can dare say, we felt her scenes from beginning till the end. From being the demanding diva to the down and out girl, in becoming a woman in love, to being a desperate woman who don't want to lose a husband. All we can say is bravo. A beautiful story, a beautifully done script, nice production work, Shu Qi then swung with a bat and hit it getting a home run.
Liu Ye was also great as the other lead however his performance was not at par with Qi's. It was just enough for us to believe that he was an honest cop and tries his best to take care of everyone. He didn't fail us, he still delivered beautifully in the movie.
Lucky for you guys, this wonderfully written, beautifully crafted, great performance from Shu Qi of a movie is being shown on Netflix so its easy for you to watch this.
What happens when a nerdy engineering student meets a girl? Nothing right? They are not known to be adept in looking for girls much less getting one. This is how our nerd Hwi-So (played by Ji Il-Joo) spends his days at the campus. Hanging out with his student buddies, just focusing on their gadgets. In comes Hye-Jin (played by Lee Elijah) a wheelchair bonded archer who had a defective motorized wheelchair. He fixed the chair, being an engineering whiz, and she being just a girl.
Story revolves around the two both of whom are carrying emotional baggages that they thought would be blocking their relationship. In the end however they learned to push through with the same for the sake of their love.
If you noticed we made a short plot synopsis of the film. The reason? The movie is plain and simple. Boy meets girl, girl meets boy, they like each other, they don't tell they love each other, they just want to be with each other, still they don't tell they love each other, parent of the girl doesn't like the boy, the boy leaves girl, girl cries, boy realizes he loves her, boy goes to the girl, girl appreciates and gets that national team member in archery.
Don't get the wrong idea that we didn't like the movie. In as much as there we loopholes the size of blackholes, we like the film. We are just hopeless romantics and they (Ji Il-Joo and Lee Elijah) simply looked good together. Even without speaking their lines, their smiles alone give us goosebumps and we can feel that they liked each other. Other characters were stereotyped but we liked them just the same.
Don't look for a meaty content and story telling as this is not that kind of a film. Back stories were (maybe) not that important to the plot anyway and we think it could have been omitted. What's important is how the two leads look good together.
Plot is easy to follow, not much twist, many feel good moments, in fact maybe too much, but still we like to see both of them together on screen. The film is also light so not much heavy lifting in the field of drama, but they do have some sad moments. Its like them trying to win you over with laughter, sadness, anger perhaps, and thank God there were no signing. So we will recommend this film on your romcom night. Its not Sleepless in Seattle nor You've got Mail, but it will drive you almost there.
Lucky for you its available on YouTube for free!!!!
What would you do if you have a spy girl such as this? Would you report her to the Police? This movie is a fish out of water comedy with a few action scenes mixed in. Featuring the lovable Gong Yoo (of Coffee Prince fame) playing our lead character here Choi Go-bong with the beautiful Kim Jung-hwa as our enigmatic and charming Park Hyo-jin in the title role as a North Korean spy.
The movie revolves around the down his luck on lovelife Choi Go-bong. He enlisted the help of his friends who have a website with uploaded profiles of single ladies. He wants to hook up with one so that he has a girlfriend (who would pretend to be one) in his reunion with his friends. Still unlucky, he went with his friends without one. On his way home drunk, he was saved by a lady in a yellow raincoat and he fell in love with her. And just like that, she went away without him knowing who she was.
A few days later she saw her again, this time she's working at a popular burger chain restaurant and a lot of guys were there to ogle at her. Calling her the new angel. Our hero Choi was dumbfounded and got love struck. Wherever he went, he could see her, Park Hyo-jin. He is obviously smitten so much so he went as far as stalking her at the place where she worked and have taken pictures of her. Those pictures he uploaded to his friend's website to go along the other ladies profiles. Those pictures made Hyo-jin more famous that it was distracting her from her real mission - which was to track down a North Korean operative who have gone rouge. She being one herself, she tries to blend in South Korea by working in that burger chain. Seeing that she was becoming well known as "spy girl" on said website, she asks our Go-bong to delete her profile. He agreed to do so if she would have a few "dates" with him.
Dates she did all the while she was still tracking her target. She apprehended her target and in one of their last dates, she hastily left him without saying goodbye. She later felt that she loved him also that she went with Go-bong to his enlistment in the South Korean army. Unknown to Go-bong, Hyo-jin likewise would go back to North Korea. In the last scene we see Go-bong stationed on duty in one of the outposts and slept for a moment. Once finished while inside his barracks he finds a lipstick mark on his cheek. He presumes it was from Hyo-jin.
This is a quirky romance comedy that touches the right recesses of your heart. Who won't fall for the handsome looks of Gong Yoo and the cute smile of Kim Hyun-hwa? They look together although her character as a North Korean agent is devoid of love on her face, but still her actions speak otherwise. Gong Yoo on the other hand is truly shown here as falling head over heels for our female lead and creates a lot of situations that either romantic or silly. The film delves on character development on the first half thus you will relate to them easily towards the end. The continuity here is a bit confusing as the editing of the story line jumps ahead, then goes back and mushes everything around. Thank god for the wonderful acting of both, we can still track the story even with a number of side stories circling around the two.
Although they are split apart in the end, one with the North the other with the South, we can just wish that they do have a happy ending. Maybe in the sequel? As of this writing there is no sequel so we are still keeping our hopes up.
Currently being shown in YouTube so its free to watch!!!
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.
Donnie Yen truly is a mesmerizing martial artist whenever we see him on screen. In Kung Fu Jungle, he comes back as Hahou Mo, a martial arts expert of course and a police instructor. In this film we see him in prison for involuntary manslaughter. This was three years ago and now a serial killer in Fung Yu-Xiu or Fung Yu-Sau (played by Wang Baoqiang) has surfaced and is killing off all the top martial arts experts around. Yu-Xiu want to prove he is number one among them.
Mo then contacts Police Luk Yuen-Sum (played by Charlie Yeung) offering her his help in catching Yu-Xiu. Acting as a consultant or resource person, Mo was released under Yuen-Sum's custody. He then guides Yuen-Sum on to Yu-Xiu's next target. It seems that they are always a step late as all the martial arts experts get killed before they arrive on the scene. Leaving but one martial arts expert is left, Mo.
They battle it off in the end and as true to Yu-Xiu's belief, martial arts are for meant for killing, he really wanted to kill off Mo. Our hero eventually won but he restrained himself in killing Yu-Xiu, he had a change of heart. Yu-Xiu took this opportunity to kill Mo but was pre empted by Yuen-Sum who aided Mo in the nick of time. With the case closed, Mo went back to prison to serve his remaining sentence however with Yuen-Sum's help, he was able to get out much earlier. Mo then returned to his hometown and again taught martial arts.
Overall, if you like martial arts films, then this movie has them all. From weapons, grappling, our antagonist practiced them all hoping to kill all those experts in these fields. He really wanted to number one for a weak reason in memory of his dead wife. Whom he killed by the way so that 1) she will not endure the hardships of having cancer or 2) he couldn't bear witness to the agony his wife is going through. How would he honor the death of his wife by being number 1 in martial arts? This maybe a cultural thing because we really don't get it. All we have happy here is that this his reason for fighting and we get to see a number of fight scenes that are truly breath taking and awe inspiring, and we get to see another best fight scene by Donnie Yen.
Wang Bagoqiang as Yu-Xiu is truly a great martial artist as well. His on screen presence was great and we can feel his passion for his craft. All his fight scenes were incredible and although I am no expert, is believable at my level. Thanks to the great fight choreographers and we were made witness to another great martial arts film.
Currently showing on Netflix but other versions are being shown on Youtube as well. If you can't find Kung Fu Jungle, try its initial title - Kung Fu Killer.
A Korean drama thriller that focuses on a crisis negotiator from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency. Starring Son Ye-jin as Ha Chae-yoon the police negotiator and Hyun Bin as Min Tae-gu, the terrorist.
Story starts off with Chae-yoon negotiating for the release of two hostages when things got out of hand. This lead to the death of the hostages which devastated Chae-yoon so much that she submitted her resignation thereafter. While waiting for the request to process, she's been called in by the Police Commissioner to handle another hostage negotiation situation. Initially she wasn't briefed about this and was immediately tasked to talk to the terrorist Tae-gu. The latter earlier kidnapped two Koreans in Thailand and is holding them captive. Tae-gu was now spilling a conspiracy with Chae-yoon, about illegal arms deals, money laundering schemes and acts of bribery. Some officials tried to silence both until Tae-gu's lair was breached by the Korean special forces sent to Thailand that resulted to the bomb explosion killing everyone inside it.
Chae-yoon thought that Tae-gu and the hostages were dead however her great sense of observation suggests that Tae-gu wasn't in Thailand when the breach happened, in fact he was in Korea. This was later verified by pictures taken at the airport showing Tae-gu arriving days ahead of the negotiations. During this time Tae-gu went after the people who was responsible for the death of his sister. She was one of the hostages killed earlier in the film. Chae-yoon now knows why Tae-gu asked for her to start the negotiations. In the end, Tae-gu was killed by a team of soldiers and the conspiracy almost died with him until Chae-yoon revealed this to a proper court.
So what do we think of this movie? Many say its a good movie but somehow we had a hard time agreeing. The story is so muddled that we had a hard time following, understanding and believing some scenes in the movie. It's like a television series of 16 episodes then shrunk into one movie 114 minutes long. It should have been a fast and quick paced movie however everything is so slow.. you can stand up and go to the kitchen, prepare a snack and come back and you can still catch up with the story line. There were a lot of filler scenes we believe could have been cut to make it interesting.
First off, the lead Son Ye-jin's character of Ha Chae-yoon was supposed to be trained abroad to be a negotiator yet we always see her emotional and in most of the time crying. How can a a police negotiator send a trainee abroad and come back emotional? If she keeps on crying, how come she passed the training and given the authority to negotiate? When the hostages were killed while she was inside the premises, is this Korea's rule of engagement? Use the negotiator to distract the criminals to give enough time for the breaching team to enter? This disregard for the hostage's lives are a big question for us and she didn't even filed a report that this should never have happened unless Chae-yoon justifies it. Her character did handle the negotiations and it was all the terrorist Tae-gu getting the upperhand always. Hyun bin as terrorist was passable in performance as Min Tae-gu. Minus the outbursts in some scenes doesn't make sense, he was a lovable guy actually. Even if the other characters paint him as a terrorist, we somehow felt that he couldn't hurt the innocents. He showed us that the character had at least good moral values in spite of the kidnapping and the killing he made in the film.
All the other characters we just standing or scowling or shouting that I was now getting confused with their performances. I must admit it was distracting to see a lot of people just standing and watching as this drama unfolds. Might as well they should be sitting beside me. As we said the story line was muddled, actually its so simple. Lead gets confused in the beginning, resigns then gets back in active duty, to find out out that the terrorist is in fact was just asking for justice, and that the true bad guys were the higher ups or officers of the lead. Simple right? When you bring in another police member doing his own investigating and given a lot of screen time, a lot of officers giving a lot of screen time again just ordering to kill Tae-gu so that the conspiracy dies with him, that confused us or we felt the movie dragged. Maybe the plot is great, but I don't blame the actors for giving us this kind of a feeling. Its the story telling that made this movie unappealing for us. We do hope someone will do a reboot of this film as we like watching these kind of story plots. Maybe this should pattern the suspense and plot twists of The Negotiator starring Kevin Spacey and Samuel L Jackson. Maybe just maybe we can have a great film.
Currently showing in YouTube so you can watch the whole movie at the link given below.
