Honestly, I never dig Korean movies. I’ve watched some before, and they all suck donkey cock. Too fucking emo and shit. But not this one. “I Saw The Devil”, is da bomb. This flick leaves very little room for boring scripts and tales, but instead, packed with lots of action and gore. And believe me, the gore level is so realistic, that it made me cringe (and it’s really hard to make me cringe). It’s brutal, it’s straight to the point and it doesn’t pretend to be something else. Kinda made all the slashers of the 21st century look like Saturday morning cartoons. It’s THAT fucking good.

And because it is a Korean movie, it has to have some emo parts too. But it is in an appropriate level and not too annoying for me. Judging from the crapload amount of blood, torture and brutal hackings, I could make do of some tear shedding and snow flakes. The plot’s also unique too. It is about the good side being on the bad side, and the bad in the pity spotlight. Confusing yeah, and that’s what makes the whole experience of watching this flick so wonderful. The cinematography is also a gem too. One can almost instantly tell that a lot of effort has been put to make the scenes look as good as it can be. The whole package is simply a masterpiece.

The only grouse I would probably have is the toughness of people in the plots, which in my opinion, isn’t really logical. Like, if you get clobbered in the head or stabbed in the jugular for like, 4 – 5 times successively, chances are high that you’re gonna wind up dead from the loss of blood or trauma, if not fall into coma for a few days. But then in this flick, the people would survive and sober up enough to endure another round of torture by the antagonist. I know Korean cars are tough, but are the people proportionately the same too? Oh well, anyway, it wouldn’t have been that fun had the victims died in every first attack.

I’d give this flick an 8 out of 10 in awesomeness, highest I’ve ever given for an Asian flick. Go watch it. It’s good.

We’ve seen a lot of vampire flicks… but how many of them were really good? Not many of them. Especially the more contemporary ones, where vampires glitter and look like they’ve been getting it a lot in the ass. Sad to say, the horror genre tanked big time in the 21st century. Fucking Twilight. How I longed to see something really dark, different and mature. Something that is not too over the top, yet dark and sadistic enough to make you cringe.

And this one is it. It has been some time since I watched something this good. The title’s making it sound underrated, but it was a surprisingly awesome watch for me. There isn’t much of a plot in this flick though. In fact, if you were to summarize it really short, the plot’s kinda similar to Twilight – it revolves around the romance between a mortal being and a vampire. Only that this was done in a more tasteful fashion, and very much less complex (and not gay at all).

The movie’s about a lonely 12 year old boy who’s in the middle of a breaking family, who hasn’t got much friends but a few bullies who keep breathing down his neck. Doesn’t seem to have much of a life, quirky and utterly miserable. But life gets interesting for him when a vampire girl tenant moves in to become his neighbor, whom he befriends and takes a liking. The boy doesn’t know the girl’s a vampire at first, but he eventually finds out. Now this vampire girl, instead of having glittering skin and drives a sports car, she looks something like that gollum in the Lord of the Rings, and she doesn’t tenderly suck blood like a paramour giving a lovebite. She rips her victims’ neck off and she could climb the wall like spiderman. What’s most enjoyable of all, is that nobody could fuck with her. She just eats everyone but that boy. Story’s linear, straight and simple. I finished the whole thing in 1 watch. A good one.

7/10

So, who do you beat after the Japanese? Kind of predictable, don’t you think? It’s the goddamn yong gwai chi (also known as contemporary ‘sei gwailow‘ or ‘a fucking white guy’). The Chinese is always pissed at everyone. Figuratively speaking, if anyone who isn’t Chinese comes to live with them, they’d go apeshit to beat the crap out of that person, citing on the grounds of their Chinese pride and self-esteem (yes, I have to agree, we do get a bit racist sometimes for the sake of entertainment).

To me, “Ip Man 2″ is no different from some of the already existing popular kungfu themes out there. You know, to rise and fight against the corrupted influence of ‘outsiders’ (foreigners). So it’s either the Japanese or Westerners (funny, little has ever shown about the Mongols). Jet Li actually did the Japs and gweilo in 1 flick – “Fearless” – and predictably, garnered heaps of praise from many critics. It kind of gets dull after you’ve watched a few hundreds of the same theme.

Anyway, in “Ip Man 2″, it’s east meets west, and the glorified-but-humble kungfu master whoops the cocky + behemoth Western guy’s ass and upholds the Chinese dignity. The only different thing about the theme in this sequel is, they actually got someone quite wimpy to be the main sei gwailow antagonist (who is as tough as a hypermart check-out guy. They should have fucking gotten ‘The Rock’ to do it! You should check out the size of the brute Jet Li beat in “Fearless”!) and the uncanny resemblance to Rocky 3 theme (you know, antagonist kills hero’s friend, then hero takes on the antagonist. Like how Balboa avenges for Apollo Creed after he got killed by the badass Mr. T). Hell, even the way they lifted him up during the victory was similar!

Another thing I didn’t like about “Ip Man 2″ was the use of wire during the sparring session between the Chinese kungfu masters. I felt that it totally adulterated the whole flick. Generally, I have no problem with wire-kungfu, but they’ve got to know how to separate the fantasy shit versus the real stuff, you know? This is almost like watching the biopic of Ray Charles, and then suddenly he takes out his sunglasses and a thick red laser beam starts to shoot out of his eyes to obliterate an evil roach creeping around his piano. It boggles the mind and makes the whole experience strange.

It was just an ok flick for me. Nothing to shout about. 5/10 (yes, I think the first one fared better).

Have you ever been in a situation where you wanted to catch a flick at the cinema, but had a hard time choosing what to watch because you’ve never heard any of the titles? That was my dilemma yesterday. My wife and I had a few hours to kill and we didn’t know what to watch. I ended up choosing “Ninja Assassin” because, you know, the title sounded kind of rad (albeit a bit tacky). I used to be fascinated with ninjas as a kid, and I figured, a flick with with the words ‘ninja’ and ‘assassin’ in its title would provide some decent amount of entertainment, right? Well, how wrong was I.

This flick feels like a cheap B-grade work, although one can tell that some decent effort has been put to make it look good. Amidst the CGI fake blood and gravity defying stunts, the flick still fails to deliver any form of excitement I expect from a martial art flick. In fact, it doesn’t even look like a ‘martial art’ flick. The way they presented the ninjas to possess the kind of superhuman abilities (ability to warp through space at light speed, dodge bullets, disintegrate into thin air, and self heal like Wolverine in the X-Men), it looks more like a sci-fi fantasy flick. And if this is a sci-fi fantasy flick, then goddamn – it sucks even more ass! Because expectations on the CGI front would be even higher!

And in case one is wondering, there isn’t much of a plot either. Worse still, the script is also cheesy and the actions bore to the bone. There are just a lot of chaotic flippings and camera shaking effects. Most of the time, I can’t tell who is fighting who (like “Transformers”) and lost about what is happening to the storyline in between the panning. I guess the only probable good thing about the flick is the amount of sweaty pecs shown by the hero, who is played by a popular ah kua Korean boyband singer or something like that (his pecs are even on the poster…), which might appeal to some needy ladies or ‘unstraight’ guys out there. Other than that, I think it’s a total waste of time. (So to say, I really ‘killed’ some time there…)

2/10

I have not been to the cinema since the first “Transformers” movie. With some time to kill, I decided to catch ’2012′ yesterday. Like ‘Transformers’, the only thing I really enjoyed inside the cinema yesterday, was the caramel glazed popcorn. Boy how I missed the popcorn.

I don’t know if this is just me but, the movie’s not really that good. It has tonnes of cool special effects, no shit… but that’s about it. I’m surprised this movie was not directed by Michael Bay. It sure hell looked like his work. Senseless effects with not much of a story. You know, the prophecy… the black president… the grim farewell speech… the humanity get-together to face the odds… Boring.

And of course, a fair share of preposterous plots. Here’s a couple of them I manage to randomly pick

- comical airplane maneuver
The hero’s airplane seems to be able to take off from cracked and uneven runways (twice in the movie)… in spite of the crazy ass tremors, volcanic eruptions, proximity of the pyroclastic flow, etc. Also, hero’s airplane could fly through volcanic ash, which is technically speaking, impossible. The plane’s engine will choke, and the ash is gonna sandblast the whole plane until it goes down.

- bionic body
The people inside the ark were soaked with tsunami sea water that washed through the snow at Himalayas, which must be at sub zero temperature. Instead of dying of hypothermia, the wet people of the party boat were as animated as excited alcohol laden teenagers in a pool party. The people in 2012 must have bionic abilities to withstand that kind of temperature.

And many more. The whole movie’s like that. It’s like watching road runner and the coyote show. Everything is so fucking coincident and everyone’s unbelievably lucky. I’d definitely enjoy the movie if I’m a 6 year old but alas, I’m not so… it’s a waste of my money. (ticket’s 10 bucks! fuck that’s expensive!) 4/10.