Reviews

Curious blend of history, LGBTQ comedy and harrowing battle scenes

An historical parody with a very unexpected ending (for me anyway ... I was watching it after midnight and missed the inference of the movie's name). The comedic effects are similar to that in the two Pee Nak movies. A group of villagers from Kung Raga (part of Asoraya) volunteer to spy on Yasotharavadi to acquire military intel.

The Kung Raga spies are made up of three straight men (Krai, Boontueng and Saeng) and five transgender men (Horm, Duen, Fang, Soi and Gon). Most of the humour centers around Horm, Duen, Fang, Soi and Gon and their antics ... I thought were hilarious and incredibly brave at the same time.

However, the smile was wiped off my face at the very end by some harrowing battle scenes and the fact that for the Kung Raga villagers, it turned out to be a battle to the death ... the 'good' guys didn't win. (´╥︵╥`)

This mix of humour with the blood and guts and death of war and no happy ending left me feeling rather strange at the end as I felt guilty for having laughed so much before the battle scene ending. So, it was an interesting and kind of bizarre experience watching it.

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This is so exciting!!! As an exile/LDH fan and nctzen, the idea of having them cross over is so cool to me. And even after watching it, the fact that I saw Yuta in the same frame of so many Japanese actors and singers and dancers who I also like was hard to believe. And Yuta did a really great job as Suzaki.

So, without being bias, I will say it's my favourite film out of all of them. Seeing all of Oya High together and friends was the best part for me. And of course, Kazuma's character (Fujio) is as friendly as ever which makes him endearing to watch.

I also think the character stories for Amagi and Suzaki was unique compared to other friends in this franchise. Suzaki especially because you can see in his actions and gaze that he's conflicted about a few things. And the overall message that is conveyed, mostly about friendship and unity adds to the story.

The directing and fight scenes have also gotten much better and it was really cool to see the transitions from one fight to another. And the OST was also so great, I really need to add all these songs to my playlist.

After months of anticipation and excitement, I can proudly say they they exceeded my expectations!

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Sometimes it's better to travel alone

Jackie Chan had a big budget to make a sequel of sorts to Armour of God in Operation Condor. He once again plays Asian Hawk, simply referred to as Jackie, this time hunting Nazi gold in north Africa.

The movie opened with one of the most spectacular motorcycle and car chases I've ever seen. One stunt in particular was death defying enough that Jackie shows the scene three times from slightly differently angles just to make sure we appreciate it. Near the end of the chase, he repeats the viewing for another ambitious stunt. I was ready to sit back and be entertained by this high velocity ball of energy. Instead the movie came to a screeching halt when Carol "Do Do" Cheng's character was introduced. The stereotypical "know it all" female control freak was to accompany Jackie and be in charge of him on his trip to find the Nazi gold. As if one annoying female character wasn't enough, Condor adds another. This time the granddaughter of one of the Nazis who was in charge of the treasure base will also be making the trip. Later, they would add another useless female character. They all had the ability to do exactly the wrong thing at the right time to make everything worse. I'm also pretty sure they must have been paid per scream. There was a lot of screaming and needing to be rescued. If this is your idea of humor you are in for a real treat. For me, it made the center portion of this film interminable. To make matters worse, the fights in the middle portion of the film were scarce and uninspired.

The final segment of the film picked up. The female characters still managed to behave absurdly, but at least the stunts were better. Jackie had to fight two foes in a giant wind tunnel for testing planes. Here at least was some inspired action and humor involving Jackie and his fighting style.

There were also some questionable representations of other cultures. The 1990's might not have been the most sensitive time, but I found the portrayals offensive. Even more offensive was the idiotic portrayal of every female character. I finally had to mute the TV during some of the scenes to be spared the screaming and the "save me Jackie!" cries.

This is a highly popular Jackie Chan film, especially from many people's childhood memories. Unfortunately, that was not my experience. The beginning of the film and the end were stunt triumphs. The cringeworthy middle left me wishing the bad guys had been better shots. This was Operation Turkey* for me.





*turkey is not only a bird, but American slang for a dud

2/5/23

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heartbreaking, yet beautiful

This has to be one of the most underrated films of 2022.

The director, Tanada Yuki, did a fantastic job portraying the ups and downs of life through gorgeous scenery and profound dialogue. At times, the pacing felt a bit slow, and some of the scenes seemed to drag slightly, but it did an effective job of creating an emotional experience for the viewer. This film touches on issues of mental illness, various forms of familial and relationship abuse, and toxic work culture. Certain scenes contained heart-wrenching and quite graphic depictions of self-harm and abuse, so be forewarned. The slower paced scenes ultimately allowed the viewer to reflect on the serious issues presented in this film. This movie is relatively short, and the plot isn't that complicated, but everything about it is impactful.

What makes this film amazing is the acting. Nagano Mei truly become the character of Shiino Tomoyo. I could feel her anguish, frustration, and helplessness through the screen. Her character felt like an anchor for the viewer to hold onto. Her reactions felt very real, in the face of tremendous heartbreak and anger. All the characters had fantastic line delivery, but Nagano definitely owned this movie.

Even though this film is incredibly sad, there are elements of humor sprinkled throughout. It felt very real, as life is filled with beauty, tragedy, and comedy. I can't emphasize enough how gorgeous this film is. It's definitely an emotional roller coaster, so prepare tissues!

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Fate is on my side!

Jackie Chan's Dragon Ma is back for this sequel to Project A without Sammo Hung. He has to face not only the criminal Tiger Au, but vengeful pirates, rebels, and most of all a corrupt police officer who wants him dead. Dragon has his hands full and sometimes handcuffed all while trying to navigate the conspiracies and death threats. This is vintage Jackie Chan with plenty of hard- hitting fists, kicks, falls, and laughs.

The plot is fast moving as Jackie has to take down the criminal element, deal with rebels and their secret book of names, avoid being killed by his superior, and escape the pirates' flying hatchets sometimes all at once! The story has weak areas as the double crosses and changing alliances take place, but the action is non-stop and the main reason for watching the movie to begin with.

One of the funniest scenes takes place in Maggie Cheung's home as a stream of good guys and bad guys revolve around her household searching for places to hide, often unaware of the others. Another inspired bit has Jackie and his nemesis Chun handcuffed together as a hatchet wielding gang(plank?) of pirates chases them through town.

The stunts often end with someone hitting the ground hard or smacking into a giant vase or poles on the way down. In one of the last scenes, Jackie runs down a falling wall and afterwards the building façade lands on him with little room for error to avoid a calamitous injury. This film is full of some of the most inventive fight and stunt scenes you are likely to see. Though the final fight scenes are long there is so much variety with Chan and different fighters and stunt elements it would have been hard to be bored.

Chan avoided the obvious mugging from some of his later movies and was a joy to watch as he ran up and down walls, cleverly finding ways to escape perilous situations. The cast was solid. Rosamunde Kwan appeared as a rebel. Michael Chan provided a great foil for Jackie in one of the early fights. And Lam Wai as the corrupt Superintendent Chun managed to keep up with Chan while they ran, flipped, and fought handcuffed together in a memorable sequence. My only disappointment was with Maggie Cheung's dipsy doodle role. She's so much better than the idiotic female she was often asked to play in Chan's movies.

The spectacular stunts and fights made up for a less than compelling story. This film was when Jackie Chan was starting to hit his stride as a choreographer, director, and star. Other films might have had more dangerous stunts but Project A 2 had plenty to keep your attention.

2/5/23

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“Okay, but why?” and “Okay, but how?”

Were the questions I kept asking as I was watching, and I did not receive answers for the majority of them. The only things the movie had to offer were gore and the performances. The writing was nonexistent just like the logic behind the rules of the curse/hypnosis.

There were maybe 2 decent characters, but none that truly caught my attention. Most of the teens were either boring and just there to die in creative ways, or borderline psychos, and the laughable attempt to make it seem like “everyone would act this way in a similar situation” just made me laugh. There is a difference between doing awful things for survival, and doing awful things for survival while also laughing and enjoying yourself.

The ending is just dumb. Makes sense in the most shallow perspective, but when you start to think about it even slightly, it all falls apart.

Overall, they should have used some of the money from special and practical effects of gore to hire a better writer. Unless the source material is also this dumb, then there is no hope.

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I started this movie thinking that it is inspired by classic Korean dramas but got highly disappointed. It had got a good story with excellent actors but the script felt flat. the execution and editing were the worst. This was a 2 hr long movie and the scene would transition was pathetic. it feels like I had skipped something, but NO THE SCENES WERE NOT MISSING, NEITHER I SKIPPED, IT WAS LIKE FILL IN THE BLANKS or read in between the lines.

I didn't get the ending also, why is the ML running it was so confusing. and the romance when did that happen to make such an ending? it vibed like incest although they were not related so I definitely didn't like it.

The acting was average nothing special.

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Disposable entertainment about a non-disposable wife

Some HUGE dude has his wife kidnapped; the villain offers a sum of money that would turn the huge dude's life around, but he wants his wife back. Apparently, it's a first - everyone else took the money!
The huge dude then puts his size to use, one-punch-manning most minions who stand in his way of tracking his wife down and retrieving her. There's some failed comedy relief, the fights are realistic but not too great and the story isn't anything new, though it manages to hold the attention for the full running time.

To be honest, I'd much rather see tanks of men on screen than steroid freaks, so the lead in this is kind of refreshing and his stoicism made him always interesting, but this really is the typical middle-of-the-road kind of tale we've all seen before and there's not much to recommend it by.

That said, there's plentiful worse out there, so it's not a total waste of a film by any means.

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Movie wasn't what I really expected, I still think it's much better than the 1st season and the movie.

You need to watch at least the first movie and 2nd season in order to understand what is going on in this one. Also there's a lot of re-occurring characters from the first season/movie here.

- Since all of the series/movies under Prince of Legend is not much of a serious story, the plot isn't much as well here.
- It is another competition again with ikemens, this time with 'Aristocrats' and 'Princes'
- I love the aspect of concern between Team Next and Ryu, while trying to understand why one of Team Next member has changed to the Aristocrat side.
- All the boys are indeed an eyecandy, but I think Alan Shirahama (main actor) really took the spotlight here. Though I have to say that I prefer his acting in Season 2 as Shintarou instead. Him being as Dori in this movie, I had so many cringe moment with him being in that character, due to the change of personality. But he did well acting the part. I just wished his character was more opened to what was happening during the movie, since he's still Shintaro and the sudden shift to a different personality felt off and less compassionate unlike how he was in S2.

Spoiler
- The movie does end in a cliffhanger, and I'm hoping that despite LDH dropping the otome game based on this series is that they still finish off the Prince of Legend series. For me, I think the cliffhanger was actually the most interesting and intriguing part of what it seems like a much bigger and darker plot. If they do push it, I hope they get a much better screen writer and make a much better plot for the next.

Overall:
If you have gotten invested with the series, go ahead and watch this. It's still fun and enjoyable. I'm just hoping if LDH continues this series, that the plot will be much better.

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Again will mention this; if cheesy, cringe and exaggerated acting is not your cup of tea, this is not the thing for you.

I've done a review for the drama, and I have to say the same thing for this. If it wasn't for my love for the boys in this whole series, I may have dropped it.

This is a continuation from the drama. If you haven't watch the drama for this, you don't need to worry about that. Since they allotted 30mins of the movie for re-capping the drama series. You won't miss out much if you didn't watch the series.

- The movie is about the boys competing for the Prince of Legend title and some for Kanon (main heroine).
- I'll be honest not so happy with who the heroine ends up with, since I found the other boys had a much genuine love or reason for liking her.

Overall:
Same as my drama review. If you enjoy watching ikemens competing with each other and want something light and funny, you may want to try watching this. The boys did a good job with acting their roles.

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Hidden Blade best art house film

Hidden Blade is noir film artistic beautiful film.
Cinematography of hidden blade is amazingly outstanding and aesthetic!!!! There have plot-twist!!
Legendary Actor Tony Leung and Zhou Xun is so worth to watch. Young Actor Wang Yibo’s still get along with Tony Leung perfectly when he face-off with Tony on track scene, which is great performance exceeded audiences expectations!!!

Some people who gave 1 star or 2 star to film is obviously gave by anti because of they hate yibo a lot.
Even though anti hate yibo a lot, they should know and Google first who is Cheng Er and those legendary actors (Tony Leung, Zhou xun, Huang Lei ) willing to participate in this film.
Cheng Er’s Level is not cheap !!!
Those anti personally and obviously attack to yibo without watching Movie!!!
I accept some people may not like Cheng Er’s style but this is not bad film!!!

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Great beginning followed by a bit of disappointment

I didn't read the synopsis prior to watching this movie (or maybe I had read it at some point, but I don't remember it, so...), so I had no idea what's coming and wow. This movie definitely started off strong. It was fresh, fun and maybe a bit crazy (but in a good way) and I actually caught myself laughing out loud every few minutes. And the characters were adults, so there was the potential to be a bit more daring with the humour and I'm glad the writers made use of it, even tho it felt a bit embarassing at times. Bonus point for a likeable female character!

I can't compare this movie with the show (did I miss something not watching it?), but sadly I feel like Oh! My Assistant slowly started losing it spark as the movie progressed. Because somewhere along the way (thankfully it was towards the end) all the things I loved and named in the first paragraph were pushed aside just to be unceremoniously replaced with the most repeated and boring cliches known to the mankind. Misunderstandings, pretending and the last nail in the coffin, the "their best friend of years is actually in love with them". While the first two were funny maybe the first few times, repeating it over and over again without any talking (I mean, they talked, but kinda ignored it afterwards) was just frustrating. It's old, overused, and most importantly - it's not something that should be prioritized over the elements that were actually interesting and mainly - over the characters themselves. Because yes, it made the characters develop, but in a negative way. I mean slightly creepy second lead? Come on! You can do better. Another point - I don't know if the chemistry between the two main leads was getting worse with time or if it was almost nonexistent from the get go, but I feel that sometimes it would just be better to not make the main characters kiss and this is one of the cases.

The last thing I found kind off off-putting was the voiceover/characters saying out loud what they think or feel that happened every so often. It felt a little bit out of place - I don't know if those were remnants of the comic, lazy writing or just director's vision, but they became too noticable and honestly I don't understand their purpose. Wasn't there a less disruptive way to make the viewers understand?

But all in all, even though I named many things I didn't like, I still quite enjoyed watching this movie. As I mentioned before, it started off really strong, the actors were quite likeable and even though its potential wasn't used as much as it should be, maybe because the movie was rather short, it didn't get that MUCH worse, it was still fun and after it ended, I didn't feel like I wasted two hours of my time and was actually quite happy with it. But I would be much happier, if it just stayed light and fun without all the unnecessary drama.

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what the hell just happened to me ?

OMG , this was so cute in a way that I cannot describe.
A love so pure it almost felt like I was violating their privacy watching this.
The actors did an amazing job.

I'm not one to cry easely watching movies, sometimes I might shed a tear or 2. Reading the comments of people saying they cried so much I was like "Meh, probably not that bad".

I dindn't cry when he left Yuki.
I didn't cry when they got back together.
I didn't cry when I saw the cameo of HIStory : Make our days count (this series broke me in a way I'll never recover from).
I didn't cry when I saw that beautiful scene when the mom finally accepted her son and his partner relationship (this type of thing usually make me emotional)
I didn't cry during the beautiful montage of them growing old together.

That scene with the rings ... I LOST IT. I started sobbing like my life depended on it. In fact, I'm writing this review with so much tears in my eyes I can barely see my screen.

I cannot in good contience rate this movie very high on "rewatch value" because I'm never watching it again. I can't do this to myself again.

Fuck, I still can't stop crying. Somebody help me.
I'm going to rewatch Business Proposal so that I can gain my sanity back.

Bisous

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Not as good as MDL hyped it up to be! But almost as good as the original

After reading reviews here, I was expecting maybe too much. I enjoyed the first film a lot, so I was excited to see this anyway, but the reviews on this site made out that this was a massive improvement on the original in every department.
It wasn't.

Throwing in a half-Korean-American cop for more international appeal, this sequel opens with our North Korean hero and the said American losing the criminal they're both chasing... who then pops up in South Korea. Yes, a good way to get it all going...
but then it quickly goes downhill.
In the original, the South Korean cop was a bit of a loser and very funny; in this one, his introduction really lagged - so that high-octane start was right out the window!
Noodles aside, the gags were dumb and the calibre of writing clearly wasn't on a par with the first! Sadly, this would prove evident throughout the rest of the film.

The sister-in-law many of us saw as the perfect Korean "waifu" is back and, where the producers were smart to give her more screentime, she felt shamelessly additional to nearly all of her scenes outside of the home, making her nothing but fan-service,
And if you're going to do fan-service, why not go bikinis too?

Joking aside (I'm glad she kept her clothes on), the problem with ensemble cast films is that they tend to be overly long; this wasn't an exception! Many scenes felt devoid of humour and failed to drive the story forwards or develop characters, while the moment the hot sister-in-law meets the American is pure cringe!
I was hoping that she was trying to make the North Korean dude jealous, so that he'd be forced to act, but instead, she was just made to look bad.

The fights are okay in this; there's a lot of gunfire which isn't very interesting and the South Korean seems oddly bad-arse - which really cost comedic potential - but really, for me, the plot just wasn't anywhere near as good as the original. This one also left a few loose ends... which may be to set up a 3rd instalment, but I'm not sure the American cop would be needed, and just trying to get our handsome hero back to the South to finally settle down with you-know-who would take too much screentime already.

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