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.
Timeless Romance or Timeless Love is a story of 4 women who transcends through time, just to win 4 men that got away. All their souls were trapped in stones that eventually was made into a necklace and comes upon our hapless heroine in Qin Duyi in the modern times.
These spirits use Duyi's body to go after the men that will hopefully move them to the afterlife. Being 4 souls, they are after 4 men obviously. So each of these 4 souls have to to share Duyi's body confusing the men. To think that even Duyi has her own man to capture as well.
The movie is more on the silly side rather than on the romance side as we keep seeing these souls going in and out of our main character indiscriminately. We pity the girl for being overly used by these souls and of how the men would react knowing in the end that they were after just one woman with multiple personalities. There were funny moments here of course but we simply can't accept the fact the term "used and abused" is constantly being seen with out heroine. The four souls had great performances however the lead actor playing Duyi is somehow left out in our point of view. It's difficult acting alone, and with additional 4 more characters? I think that was a stretch for her. There were still other things to discuss but we like to leave it at that since the ending would just make our review moot and academic. If you want fish out of water antics and confused men looks, then watch this one. Per write ups, its being shown on Amazon Prime but we watched this in YouTube instead. Simply click on the thumbnail below.
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.
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.
We really can't get enough of Donnie Yen and he's here again reprising his role as Master Ip Man. This is the last of the franchise (I hope not) and we can't miss this one for the world.
After the death of his wife, he was diagnosed to have cancer due to his excessive smoking. Meanwhile his rebellious son got into another fight and got expelled from school. This made Ip Man decide to send his son to the United States. So he went to San Francisco look for a school for his son. In the process of he needs the help of the Chinese Benevolent Association or CBA. He needs a letter of recommendation from its head Master Wan. CBA has been at odds with a student of Ip Man, Bruce Lee, so unless he helps the CBA in controlling Lee, he won't get that letter from CBA.
Ip Man tried talking to a principal to get his son enrolled when he met with Master Wan's daughter Yonah. He saved her from being bullied in school and he even accompanied him to her house. He met with Master Wan and was accused of using his daughter Yohan so he can get that letter. Master Wan challenges Ip Man to a duel only to be interrupted by an earthquake. Master Wan promises to continue their duel after the mid-autumn festival. Ip Man told him not to continue as he merely accompanied Yonah home just to be safe.
On another part of the story, the girl who bullied Yonah, reported to her parents, her father is an officer of the Immigration Service. In retaliation, this officer then proceeded to arrest Master Wan with trumped up charges of the CBA harboring illegal immigrants.
While he was being arrested, a Karate instructor with the United States Marines went down to disrupt the mid autumn festival by challenging the Kung Fu Masters present. After defeating almost everyone, Ip Man interceded and won over the over zealous instructor.
Afterwards Ip Man and Yonah learned that Master Wan was in the office of the Immigration Service. They wanted to see him but was not able to. They were warned by a student of Bruce Lee who worked in the Immigration Service to inform the CBA that like Master Wan, they will all be arrested. Before the officers could flee, they were beaten by a US Marine Sargeant Geddes (played by Scott Adkins) to proved that Karate is very much superior than Chinese Kung Fu.
Geddes tirades against Chinese Kung Fu didn't end there, thinking that Master Wan defeated the Karate instructer earlier, he proceeded to look for him. He took Master Wan from the custody of the Immigration Service and brought him to their barracks for a duel in front of the recruits. Geddes won over Master Wan almost killing him. During this time, Ip Man helped bring the CBA officers to Bruce Lee's studio there they were informed that Master Wan was taken to a hospital.
Ip Man angered, he asked to be brought to Geddes whom he defeated. Master Wan then prepared that recommendation letter to Ip Man, He had decided then that he won't be bringing his son to the United States but instead he will teach his son Wing Chun.
Ip died in 1972 of head and throat cancer and Bruce Lee came to pay his respects to his teacher. In the end, the US Marines finally accepted Chinese Kung Fu as one their instructions for combat training.
After watching the other Ip Man films (which we loved) this finale is truly different. This was the only martial arts film that we cried not once but twice. Unlike the other films that showed Chinese Kung Fu being ridiculed and eventually fought back to earn its credibility (this film has the same premise) this one showed the discrimination of Chinese in the United States. What made us emotional in this film is the inclusion of Ip Man and his son's rocky relationship.
There were a lot of things to chew here but it was tastefully and wonderfully done. It still had that martial arts appeal to it yet it showed family emotions. It took Ip to realize his son's passion after seeing Yonah's experience with his father Master Wan. He later realized this in the end and this made our eyes bring down tears to our cheeks.
Donnie Yen truly is the Ip Man and he owned the role. We saw Yen in the iconic role for so many times yet we don't get tired watching him. So it was just befitting that he played the role till the death of Ip Man.
Because the movie tackled a lot of things most of the characters were left with short or inadequate character development. There were some scenes that bewildered us but we had to let it go as we don't expect much from a martial arts movie. So we were surprised to find a father/son and father/daughter emotional entanglements herein.
If you have watched all or some of the Ip Man films, this one is a great ending to it all.
