A bit of a different revenge drama. Carter Wong plays Ping Fei Lee who has been accused of killing his brothers in the monastary. I felt bad for him b/c there was no evidence that he had committed any kind of crime; yet the head monk was screaming lock him up he's guilty. They said he killed all these people and stole some important Jade object that the Emperor had given the monks. He escapes the monastray and tries to find the real trader/killer. There's some subplot about the Emperor wanting to destroy the monks and the Shaolin temple. Not sure whay it was necessary. Lung Chun Erh played the Emperor's sister. Polly Shang Kuan played a student of a monk.

Overall the story is nonsensical but it was an enjoyable watch. I'm biased though b/c I like Carter Wong and Polly Shang Kuan. They work well together. The fight scenes were ok and I liked the short fight scene between Polly and Lung Chun Erh. I loved the fan work by Chun Erh too. I loved the Imperial costumes as well.

12/16/23

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This is such a good movie. Donnie Yen is top notch as usually. I may be biased as he is one of my favorite Hong Kong actions stars of his or any other generation honestly. Just love this man. He's great here as a man who accidently kills a rival who challenged him. He then goes to jail (I assume manslaughter). He's never forgiven himself for the killing and works hard to not engage in fighting. A martial arts fanatic decides he wants to fight all the best martial artist in their given expertise and kill them in a fight to the death and has he eyes set on Wu Xia Hou, Donnie Yen's character.

Excellent fight choreography, great cast and nice throwbacks to some of Hong Kong's greatest martial arts collaborators.

12/9/23

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I absolutely love the anime. I plowed thru all the episodes in 2 days and was upset it was over. Then I found out there was a live action and I was like NO WAY!!

YES WAY!! The movie is not a good as the anime but good. I took points off because I didn't really like the ending that much and the scene where Lord Kudo tell Miyo to stay at her granfather's house seemed weird or rushed. Overall an enjoyable film. I am always in the mood for romance and this hit the spot. Meguro Ren, is excellent as Lord Kudo. No wonder he won the award for Best Emerging Actor Award at the 15th TAMA Film Awards Ceremony. I liked Imada Mio as Miyo as well.

I found my new crush in this too Watanabe Keisuke played Arata and he is totally my type. And it was nice to see my favotite anime voice actor, Tsuda Kenjiro in a small role.

12/4/23

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So good!

I have been watching Godzilla movies as long as I can remember. Most are enjoyable and enteretaining except the 1998 American made one. It's one of the worse movies I have ever seen.

This movie has no right to be as good as it is! But it is good. Very good and a great movie to celebrate the 70th anniversay of the most well known kaiju in the world. Must be seen on the big screen.

I didn't know a Godzilla movie could pack an emotional punch the way this film did. It's a testament to the writing and acting in this film. Kamiki Ryunosuke, Hamabe Minami, Yamada Yuki, Aoki Munetaka, Yoshioka Hidetaka, Ando Sakura and Sasaki Kuranosuke. I'm listing all the actotrs here b/c everyone played their roles well. I also, must shout out the little girl actress. I don't know her name b/c she's not listed in MDL for this film but she was magnificent and I think she was only 3 or 4 years old. I can't give much away but the film explores survivors guilt, shame and forgiveness.

12/3/23

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This is the 2nd worse kdrama I watched this year. Just bad. I am not comparing to Strong Woman b/c I never saw it. I literally started watching this b/c of the short youtube videos of Si-O. I love a good looking guy, villian even better (that's my jam). I actually thought the 1st three episodes were fairly good even with some of the shenanigans going on.

The reason this show is terrible is the writing. Period, point blank. A show can be an over the top comedy/fantasy/drama. That doesn't mean the writing gets to be bad and the audience has to accept the many inconsistency in the story. The plot still has to be logical and reasonably entertaining but this wasn't. There were way too many unnecessary characters and too many unnecessary subplots.

This was the worst, non-climatic ending to a villian I have ever seen!! I didn't expect Si-O to do a complete 180, that makes no sense. But to not have an epic, all out fight scene with the "hero" and the villian was just plain stupid and Namsoon being immobilized by drugs doesn't count. They litterally end the villain and then there were 40 more minutes of show left. A show that, at this point no one cared about.

The best thing about this show is Byeon Woo Seok. That's it.

11/26/23

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I really enjoyed the series at the beginning. I liked how each episode built off the next. There were like episodes of the week but an overall main story about cops who were ambushed when they were out to arrest the biggest gangtser in town. There was a lot of characters and a lot going on. So many red herrings and things that kept you guessing. There was a lot of cloak and dagger in this series and it initailly had me on the edge of my seat. Unfortunately, it got dragged down by too many filler episodes. They literally, could have cut 8 episodes.

The best thing about the series is the cast. Zhang Yi plays the ML Chief Qin and he is fantastic in this. I'd definitely try another show he was in. Zhang Hao Wei as Lu was goood too!. I loved Zhao Zi Qi as Feng. She was Chief Qin's ex-wife and she worked for internal affairs.

My biggest gripe though was the annoying teen girl character. She was on my last nerve most of the series. Her character was unnecessary and only served to annoy me (the audience). Lu was at a murder investigation and she is was acting like a damn idiot. She shouldn't have been there in the first place. That scene pissed me off so bad and it wasn't the only one.

11/25/23

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WHAT WAS THAT ENDING???

The show is not as good as it could have been. However, I will say that each episode at least, builds off the next and it's a coherent story. Episode 6 is by far the best episode in the series and could have ended there IMO. But NO!! we have to deal with these 11th hour shenanigans of who actually did what. PISH TOSH!!

I must be the only one annoyed by the the treacle ending. Eveyone lives happliy ever after; I call BS. I am also pissed that Makiko did not get the comeuppance I wanted or needed. They tried to make Makiko sympathetic too. NO!!! Anyway, not terrble but a total let down.

The pluses of the series are the lead actresses are really good and I loved the young actress playing Anzu. I also, like the Claire character; she was a good friend.

11/25/23

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This was not good! I really wanted to like this. I'm glad I didn't pay to see this at the theater earlier this year. I have not seen the anime or read the manga so I didn't know the story before hand but this plot was a mess and incoherent. It also felt incomplete, which may have been b/c they planned for sequels!

The CGI is terrible too. Lately, I feel like new CGI is worse than old CGI. IMO old CGI was more seamless now it just looks cartoonish. This is very visible in the fight between Saiya and Nero. Mackenyu is really the only reason I watched and he can't save this stupid plot or make it interesting enough to stick around for a sequel!

11/19/23

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This is a decent movie. The cast is great. The premise is good.

What would you do if you thought the father that loves and adores you, and who has been the only person in your life, was a killer, a child killer no less? Would you believe him when he says he didn't do it or will you believe everything and everyone around you? Son Ye Jin and Kim Gab Soo are great as the daughter/father leads. I thought Kim Gab Soo was the standout here. I was on the fence; going back and forth with each reveal. I didn't know what or who to believe.

The reason I didnt give this a better score is b/c at the big reveal they make something appear in contrast to the way a charcater was behaving in the prior scenes. Plus, one of the characters was threatening and blackmailing another character and it didn't make sense. I think it's worth watching at least once.

10/29/23

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Executed Poorly but...

This is one of those movies where the story is there but the execution is not. For a low budget movie the production was excellent however, the story is lost in all of the mood and suspense building. The title is also not the best especially when this is more of a ghost story. I mean I guess one of the characters can be considered a stalker but not for the title to be Stalker.

The cast is really good too so that's a plus for the film. The FL is outstanding but unfortunately I don't know her name. She's not listed in the credits here and tried every avenue I could to try and find who she was. She was very believable as a person who seemed to be losing their mental faculties and Kim Jung Han was great as the perceived, crazy next door neighbor.

The movie is worth the watch at least once.

10/1/23

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Left Wanting More

This was the start of a good movie but it's just not a fully completed story it's a runtime of 77 minutes and there could have been a succint story in that time and maybe they tried but for me it was too many things left unresolved. Makes me wonder if a sequel was thought about or planned but never took off.

The cast is really good though and I really liked Mimoto Masanori as Takashi and of course Nagase Tasuku was good here.

I thought the fight choreo was spectacular though and it was filmed well. You could see all of the movements and counter movements. Loved that. Sonomura Kensuke, the martial arts director did an excellent job.

9/4/23

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Falters in the Last few Episodes

I was super excited about this series. I came for Ma Dong Suk b/c who wouldn't and he was great here, even thogh his character Woong Cheol was annoying. I also loved Jo Dong Hyuk as Tae Soo. He was fantastic and overall, my favorite character.

The Jung Moon character was supposed to be a genius but was constantly being bested by everyone and getting beat up and nearly killed in every epsiode; however, his character is truly sympathetic. Goo Tak, the main character, anti-hero who the audience is supposed to root for was an idiotic mess and so unlikeable. He got on my last nerve.

Unfortunately, this show went from excellent to nonsensical in a matter of the last few episodes; the writing went from pretty entertaining to completely illogical. Starting in epsiode 8, for some inexplicable reason, the characters are, unlike their prior selves, with stupid actions and reactions to information. Made no damn sense.

The last episode was a little better that the last few but I simply stopped caring. Also, wished the fight with Tae Su and Moon Ki had been filmed slower. The choreography was actually pretty good but the action was moving too fast for me to truely enjoy it.

9/1/23

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This was just too much! I am heartbroken after watching. I knew It would be devastating but I didn't realize I would be so angry after watching b/c of the injustices these children faced at the hands of adults who were supposed to be protetcing them. Parent and/or guardians should not have the right to take thier childs voice away. The events in this movie just have me so emotional right now. I was yelling at the screen and asking where the media was to shame all these damn people.

The cast is great but the young actors are the standouts here. Kim Hyun Soo as Yun Doo and Baek Seung Hwan as Min Soo.

8/28/23

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Overall a sweet movie to watch for a Saturday or Sunday matinee. Nothing special but I did like the cast and characters. PSJ was really good as Hong Dae.

I really liked the relationship between Hyo Bong and his daughter Eun Hye and how they showed that just b/c he was homeless he loved his daughter and wasn't a deadbeat and she loved him too.

I liked how it was about redemption for some of the team members and wanting to belong for some of the other team members. That's what sports do. They bring people together. Especially, big sporting, international team events. It's the collective rooting for the home team or the underdogs that we all really love.

8/26/23

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