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Reviews
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023)
Had potential but poorely executed...
This movie has so much to go for, nice set designs, fairly good actors, but probably ruined by poor writing. Screenplay was corny and at times just cringeworthy. Motivations of the main characters were not convincing and downright not logical to begin with. The arena for the hunger games and action sequences was random and not satisfying. They tried their effort in building and depicting a dystopian world but it just wasnt it, it lacked depth and some soul. The vibe of this hunger game installment reminded me in the beginning alot of squid game. Squid game is a perfectly good example how a Battle Royale movie should be directed. But unfortunately after the disappointment of this Hunger Games I wont be looking forward to another one.
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)
They tried but It was a cringefest...
While I give them points for trying but this just wasnt it. The concept was full of cliches and that shouldn't have to be a problem, but it was not so well executed. The movie went almost through a checklist of formulaic teenage romance mean girls flick boxes, but there was not so much synergy anything other than weirdly placed jokes that came over as very scripted, while they are actors just reading from a script, but at least make them have distinctive personalities and not make them crack the same type of jokes anywhere they go, and a bit condescending tone towards lgbt+ people too. Don't get me wrong, Michael Cera and Kat Dennings are great actors, but their romance just didnt made alot of sense and was most of the time cringeworthy, sorry my opinion.
Tin lung baat bou (2023)
Legendary wuxia story too big to tell in 2 hours
As a fan of Louis Cha Wuxia novels I was excited to see one of his famous stories hit the big screen. The movie relies on the audience already familiar with the story as it is obviously made for the fans, because alot of the back stories were left out. It starts out fast paced, but the endearing scenes were actually ones between Qiao Feng and Ahzhu. Yuqi Chen as the soul companion of Qiao Feng did a wonderful job. It's a shame that she did not get more screentime because she has great charisma, and the chemistry between Donnie and Yuqi were wonderfully depicted. The second half of the movie however packed in a whole lot for people to digest. Remember that the novel spans somewhat 40 episodes of drama series content, it's hard to prop that into a 2 hour movie. For people who are new to the material, it can leave you confused. For people who already know the story, feel it is too rushed and too many story plot has been left out. I rather the production had modified the storyline to fit in the context of a movie, without making it weird. Therefore I recommend seeing the tv drama series of The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils of 2022, that gives a better sense of what the story is about. All in all it was a nice effort to try to adapt this into a full blown action movie.
Liu lang di qiu 2 (2023)
A chinese space opera
The movie started off slow and appears to be incoherent, but it all comes together in the 3rd act of the movie and it is a worthy prequal and ties up superbly to the first movie, which was a great watch aswell. This is not your typical space battle laser guns sci-fi movie. This has a far more intelligent storyline that makes you think how future human civilization and its technology can turn out be and what humanity as a whole is capable of doing in order to survive. It provided great concepts as what space colonization and artificial intelligence can do. It's a disaster movie on an epic grand scale like we haven't seen before, it's basically a space opera, with a Night Shymalan type of plot twist at the end.
Chang jin hu (2021)
Other side of history
As a cinematic action movie point of view, this was superbly done. The action sequences were compelling and gritty. And the historic view on both the chinese side aswell as the american side were pretty fair and accurate for that time and period. Some battle scenes and recreation of the sets were even top notch. This War was not a case of good and evil, as americans always like to depict, but it was a case of sovereign dignity.
On a political point of view, people might consider this as a propaganda movie, but the fact is the chinese PLA soldiers did stalemate the Korean War, this is an undeniable fact, that even western history books admits. So how can it be propaganda when written history acknowledge the facts depicted in this movie. It was no secret at that time the Americans made it a mission to eradicate communism. They were preparing for it, and that led North Korea struck at South Korea first. However this act of War from North Korea was provoked by the United States. China at that time allowed United States to defend South Korea, but warned them not to cross the 38th parallel. But United States didn't listen and went straight to occupy North Koreas capitol city Pyongyang. If China have let American forces to take over North Korea, that means a direct threat to China aswell. Put yourself in their shoes, what would you have done? What would any country have done if foreign forces were right at your borders.?You fight and defend. So thats what China did.
This movie might be melodramatic about it, but these chinese people have every right to make a movie to commend their fallen soldiers who basically fended off foreign aggression and for the next coming decades, created peace and stability in China for them to become the second largest economy of today, lifting millions out of poverty.