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Reviews
Wo hu cang long (2000)
The best of both worlds
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the best picture of the year ...... blah blah blah. Many good words have been said about CTHD, and I have no wish to repeat them.
It is simply a wonderful experience that combines the best of both worlds. Ang Lee has captured the essence of the Wuxia genre from the traditional Chinese cinemas and add some Hollywood production values to it. The result is a romantic-martial-art-fantasy epic with breathtaking cinematography and a hauntingly beautiful score, that I have never seen before.
Most Westerner viewers, who have no previous exposure to the Wuxia genre, are dumbstruck by the action sequences. The actions in CTHD are very very good but you can find more outrageous (if not better) fight scenes in Jet Li's in China series and Donnie Yen's New Dragon Inn and Iron Monkey, just to name a few. However, these above-mentioned flicks are usually filled with a weak plot and hollow characters.
Some minor complaints:
1) The desert flashback sequence does seem a bit too long even it is essential to understand Jen's character.
2) The way that Ang Lee handled Mui Bai and Shu Lien's relationship is great but I wish there is more screen time on it.
3) As a Chinese, I do notice the actors' varying accents but it doesn't bother me as much as other Chinese viewers. It is a fact that people from different part of China do speak Mandarin with different accents.
With these complaints aside, I still find CTHD to be a wonderfully rewarding movie experience!
Siu bat sin (1993)
A stupid movie
The story is based on the Taoist legendary figures: the Eight Immortals. The movie doesn't explain anything about Taoism, in stead, it borrows the figures and makes up a truly terrible story.
The story is basically cheap jokes glued together over the evil vs. evil plot. The acting is just awful. You can see how they are transformed but you don't see any real characters!!
It's so frustrating to see such a stupid movie to come out of HK. The HK movie industry has so much talents but somehow they just got wasted!!
Titanic (1997)
If the ship didn't sink......
Titanic has made movie history!! It's unbelievable that such a bad tearjerker can be doing so well at the box office!!
Where is the plot? Well, the movie does have ... sort of a plot, but it's very very very weak. The love between Jack and Rose is so superficial.
Where are the characters? I can't find any real character! Everywhere I look, I find cliches and stereotypes. The rich must be arrogant, ignorant, evil, etc, while the poor must be the exact opposite.
Can the actors act? Sure, every single one can but not in this movie. The acting is somewhere between so-so and bad! I've seen better performance from Cathy Bates, Leonardo DiCarpio, Bill Paxton.. in other movies.
The visual effects is the only saving grace! The sinking of the ship is just magnificent!! It's just a shame they could have spent so much money to recreate the ship but they couldn't create a good story that has characters with substance!
For teenagers who are flooded with hormones and a not-so-well-developed brain, it's understandable that they love the movie. For those who love it because it makes them cry, I suggest cutting an onion. It's much cheaper and tears come out faster!!
Hollow Man (2000)
predictable and not a bit scary
It is so predictable a movie that I don't find it scary at all except for the moment when Bacon breaks the window at Shue's apartment. There could be so much room to explore with the theme of invisibility but the movie only confines to primal human need for sex & survival.
The only watchable scenes are the dis/reappearing and nudity. The finale is...... a remake of Alien. It looks very much like Alien except it's not scary. It is also unbelievable that a person can take so much beating, burn & electrocution, & still manage to run after his old flame.
The movie is all about special effects and loses sight on the plot and characters.
I hope the movie is invisible too!!
Fung wan: Hung ba tin ha (1998)
It's one of the best kung-fu movie to come out of Hong Kong in years but its far from great.
This is no doubt a good movie but a rather poor adaptation of the original comic. The writer is basically trying to cram the comic's first 30 or so issues into 2 hours. The story itself is simple but with such a large number of characters, it is hard to follow at times. The fighting scenes are all well choreographed (occasionally true to the original comics) but sometimes they are hijacked but the SFX. A major disappointment is the lack of depth in the title characters, Wind & Cloud.
Overall it is an enjoyable movie.