WE INTERRUPT YOUR REGULAR PROGRAMMING
we interrupt the current batch of holiday snaps post for MOVIE SPOILERS!! XDDD
heh, went to an awesomely cool photo/video exhibition at a new toy camera shop (called Peek! at 36 armenian street) and had a brief stop at funan centre to support natsu at her anime karaoke competition (she got into the finals!! yay!!) and then met val for cheena movie marathon! XDDD
was supposed to catch the new michelle yeoh movie (reign of assassins -- mildly horrific pun on the chinese name 剑雨) and the donnie yuen movie, but the donnie yuen one was sold out, so no 8-pack abs and cute butt for us! boo. so we consoled our sad fan-girly hearts by catching andy lau's detective dee instead. XDDD
剑雨 was possibly the better more entertaining movie of the two. cool action sequences, and the plot hit the right weekend entertainment balance of pointing out the general direction of the show while keeping things mysterious enough to keep us engaged AND had killer comic moments.
basically kelly lin (whose pretty poetic chinese name translates into drizzle) is a l33t killer working for killer organisation. on the head honcho's orders, she murders a court official and his son for the mummified remains of a deified monk. while running away with half the monk (don't ask), she meets and falls for cool (alive) monk-to-be.
they fall in love, and monk-to-be decides to try to get kelly lin to go back to the light mend her ways via guilt-tripping her by engineering his own murder by kelly's hands. (awkward sentence structure of WINZ) i will admit, this part was relatively sweet and sob-inducing of the good kind, mostly because the monk was cute and kelly lin was pretty and the entire bit of him telling her how he wants to be a bridge (you have to watch this to understand) for her.
and then he dies.
and she decides to Be Good and not waste his sacrifice by getting plastic surgery and running to the capital and living the simple life by selling cloth.
then one day, she meets This Guy. who is totally chio-ing her even though kelly lin now looks like michelle yeoh (scarily convincing how they look alike, even the sweet chinese voice-over makes sense if you remember that it's kelly lin's voice you're hearing dubbed over michelle yeoh's face). and they fall in love, and it is still pretty sweet, because michelle yeoh runs to the temple to ask if it's okay for her to be happy again, and leet old live monk (dead monk-to-be's shifu) gives her the green light.
so they get married and live briefly in marital bliss.
in the meantime, evil organisation is feeling the lack of human resource and decides to recruit barbie hsu. bad decision for them, HILARIOUS awesomeness for us. barbie first shows up in front of the judge for murdering her husband and in-laws on her wedding night, and is COMPLETELY demented looking and keeps taking off her clothes and throwing her nubile-ish blurred, out-of-focus body at unappreciative men and eunuchs. plot device of juliet poison (take it and folks believe you're dead by way of no pulse and no body heat) is introduced.
evil organisation is trying desperately to track down both halves of dead monk remains, and soon butt heads with michelle and husband. barbie gets burnt really bad. we find out that head honcho wants the mummified remains of the monk because the monk was once a eunuch and managed to grow his dick back by leet kungfu and monkly spirituality and the head honcho is -- surprise -- a eunuch who wants to grow another dick.
much fighting ensues, and michelle yeoh is injured and unconscious and the enemies are at the door... except -- surprise again! -- useless husband is not so useless after all and beats back the enemies with relative ease. this sets the scene for the great denouement where you find out that husband is actual court official's son (remember him? the one kelly lin killed right at the beginning and whom you've written off as canon fodder?) except HE got plastic surgery too and has now trained with people to improve his kungfu mojo.
there is angst. YOU KILLED MY FADDER (but i will not kill you because it would shame my father that i killed a gurl). there is the juliet poison. DEAR HUSBAND I AM ONLY PRETENDING TO KILL YOU BUT REALLY I AM HELPING YOU TAKE REVENGE BY KILLING HEAD HONCHO AND DYING MYSELF. there is the great showdown. HEAD HONCHO VERSUS MICHELLE YEOH.
head honcho dies. michelle yeoh collapses. husband person finally gets over the juliet poison the next morning and he carries michelle away in a cloud of INSTANT FORGIVENESS AND MARRIAGE LOVE LOVE LOVE.
the end.
(p.s. barbie is awesome in this movie. i cannot repeat this often enough. because SHE JUST IS.)
the andy lau show was also much fun. but i have to be honest. the side characters totally stole the show from andy lau.
the premise of the movie is as follows;-
a spate of human spontaneous combustion is breaking out just before wu zetian's coronation, and random holy person says the only person who could fix this is detective dee, who was thrown into jail 8 years ago for objecting to wu zetian's regency. everyone runs around trying to fix things, find the reason for the people going up in flames, while navigating the complicated political scene.
sadly, andy lau was only awesome when he was just released from prison, all grunge and slovenly and snarking it up at li bing bing and carina lau and deng chao. it's almost like the moment he got a samson-ite shave and haircut, the awesomeness disappeared, and he becomes the straight guy off which the cooler side characters riff off.
deng chao was SO FREAKING CUTE. do not worry, you will get past the albino-cast and bad white wig, and fall for him halfway through the movie. if i get the dvd for this movie, it would be for deng chao and carina lau and not SHOCK andy lau. WHOM I WILL NEVER FORGIVE FOR NOT RESCUING DENG CHAO. YES I AM BITTER.
meh. i suppose i am so used to marty sue!andy lau, that i expected more of his detective dee. it does not take much thought or brains in order to save deng chao. a black cloth, or perhaps his robe would suffice. BUT NO. WASTE TIME HACKING AT CHAINS. oh deng chao, my poor baby... T__T you are wasted on detective dee....
carina lau is pretty darn cool in this movie too, despite the strange eyebrows. she has sufficient acting chops to play wu zetian. not the femme fatale, but the woman who has survived two husbands and a fair number of stepchildren to claw her way to the throne because she is supremely confident that she is more capable than anyone else of ruling.
li bing bing was... okay. cute when bickering with andy and deng chao. subservient but yet strong enough to deal with carina. i'm just a little disappointed that they chose not to expand her character a little more outside of the 'love andy, dies for andy' blah blah blah arc.
... i don't think it's because andy lau is a bad actor per say... more... he's let down by a crappy ending.
heh, went to an awesomely cool photo/video exhibition at a new toy camera shop (called Peek! at 36 armenian street) and had a brief stop at funan centre to support natsu at her anime karaoke competition (she got into the finals!! yay!!) and then met val for cheena movie marathon! XDDD
was supposed to catch the new michelle yeoh movie (reign of assassins -- mildly horrific pun on the chinese name 剑雨) and the donnie yuen movie, but the donnie yuen one was sold out, so no 8-pack abs and cute butt for us! boo. so we consoled our sad fan-girly hearts by catching andy lau's detective dee instead. XDDD
剑雨 was possibly the better more entertaining movie of the two. cool action sequences, and the plot hit the right weekend entertainment balance of pointing out the general direction of the show while keeping things mysterious enough to keep us engaged AND had killer comic moments.
basically kelly lin (whose pretty poetic chinese name translates into drizzle) is a l33t killer working for killer organisation. on the head honcho's orders, she murders a court official and his son for the mummified remains of a deified monk. while running away with half the monk (don't ask), she meets and falls for cool (alive) monk-to-be.
they fall in love, and monk-to-be decides to try to get kelly lin to go back to the light mend her ways via guilt-tripping her by engineering his own murder by kelly's hands. (awkward sentence structure of WINZ) i will admit, this part was relatively sweet and sob-inducing of the good kind, mostly because the monk was cute and kelly lin was pretty and the entire bit of him telling her how he wants to be a bridge (you have to watch this to understand) for her.
and then he dies.
and she decides to Be Good and not waste his sacrifice by getting plastic surgery and running to the capital and living the simple life by selling cloth.
then one day, she meets This Guy. who is totally chio-ing her even though kelly lin now looks like michelle yeoh (scarily convincing how they look alike, even the sweet chinese voice-over makes sense if you remember that it's kelly lin's voice you're hearing dubbed over michelle yeoh's face). and they fall in love, and it is still pretty sweet, because michelle yeoh runs to the temple to ask if it's okay for her to be happy again, and leet old live monk (dead monk-to-be's shifu) gives her the green light.
so they get married and live briefly in marital bliss.
in the meantime, evil organisation is feeling the lack of human resource and decides to recruit barbie hsu. bad decision for them, HILARIOUS awesomeness for us. barbie first shows up in front of the judge for murdering her husband and in-laws on her wedding night, and is COMPLETELY demented looking and keeps taking off her clothes and throwing her nubile-ish blurred, out-of-focus body at unappreciative men and eunuchs. plot device of juliet poison (take it and folks believe you're dead by way of no pulse and no body heat) is introduced.
evil organisation is trying desperately to track down both halves of dead monk remains, and soon butt heads with michelle and husband. barbie gets burnt really bad. we find out that head honcho wants the mummified remains of the monk because the monk was once a eunuch and managed to grow his dick back by leet kungfu and monkly spirituality and the head honcho is -- surprise -- a eunuch who wants to grow another dick.
much fighting ensues, and michelle yeoh is injured and unconscious and the enemies are at the door... except -- surprise again! -- useless husband is not so useless after all and beats back the enemies with relative ease. this sets the scene for the great denouement where you find out that husband is actual court official's son (remember him? the one kelly lin killed right at the beginning and whom you've written off as canon fodder?) except HE got plastic surgery too and has now trained with people to improve his kungfu mojo.
there is angst. YOU KILLED MY FADDER (but i will not kill you because it would shame my father that i killed a gurl). there is the juliet poison. DEAR HUSBAND I AM ONLY PRETENDING TO KILL YOU BUT REALLY I AM HELPING YOU TAKE REVENGE BY KILLING HEAD HONCHO AND DYING MYSELF. there is the great showdown. HEAD HONCHO VERSUS MICHELLE YEOH.
head honcho dies. michelle yeoh collapses. husband person finally gets over the juliet poison the next morning and he carries michelle away in a cloud of INSTANT FORGIVENESS AND MARRIAGE LOVE LOVE LOVE.
the end.
(p.s. barbie is awesome in this movie. i cannot repeat this often enough. because SHE JUST IS.)
the andy lau show was also much fun. but i have to be honest. the side characters totally stole the show from andy lau.
the premise of the movie is as follows;-
a spate of human spontaneous combustion is breaking out just before wu zetian's coronation, and random holy person says the only person who could fix this is detective dee, who was thrown into jail 8 years ago for objecting to wu zetian's regency. everyone runs around trying to fix things, find the reason for the people going up in flames, while navigating the complicated political scene.
sadly, andy lau was only awesome when he was just released from prison, all grunge and slovenly and snarking it up at li bing bing and carina lau and deng chao. it's almost like the moment he got a samson-ite shave and haircut, the awesomeness disappeared, and he becomes the straight guy off which the cooler side characters riff off.
deng chao was SO FREAKING CUTE. do not worry, you will get past the albino-cast and bad white wig, and fall for him halfway through the movie. if i get the dvd for this movie, it would be for deng chao and carina lau and not SHOCK andy lau. WHOM I WILL NEVER FORGIVE FOR NOT RESCUING DENG CHAO. YES I AM BITTER.
meh. i suppose i am so used to marty sue!andy lau, that i expected more of his detective dee. it does not take much thought or brains in order to save deng chao. a black cloth, or perhaps his robe would suffice. BUT NO. WASTE TIME HACKING AT CHAINS. oh deng chao, my poor baby... T__T you are wasted on detective dee....
carina lau is pretty darn cool in this movie too, despite the strange eyebrows. she has sufficient acting chops to play wu zetian. not the femme fatale, but the woman who has survived two husbands and a fair number of stepchildren to claw her way to the throne because she is supremely confident that she is more capable than anyone else of ruling.
li bing bing was... okay. cute when bickering with andy and deng chao. subservient but yet strong enough to deal with carina. i'm just a little disappointed that they chose not to expand her character a little more outside of the 'love andy, dies for andy' blah blah blah arc.
... i don't think it's because andy lau is a bad actor per say... more... he's let down by a crappy ending.