Reviews

I actually just finished the book a month ago so it might have adversely affected my opinion since this adaptation is so very different than the book. Without going into details and risk spoilers, I just have to say the casting is subpar, except for Gillian Anderson as Miss Havisham. The streamlining and changes in plots are questionable, the loss of some characters and changes to their actions and personality render them un-Dickensian. There should be enough time in 3 hours to tell a closer story to the original but the 3 hours felt like 6, I was bored and unmoved. I remember watching Bleak House, also with Gillian Anderson, and couldn't get enough, this one, I couldn't wait for it to end.

This is a very interesting and different martial arts movie. Not revolutionary, per se, but it's innovative, exciting, and an original. I admit, with a title like Wu Xia, which means Martial Hero, I've a preconceived notion of the way plot lines should be unfolded. However, it doesn't follow the tried and true formula and even though I was entertained, I felt a little let down, at the beginning. The first half of the movie is basically CSI, China, Ching Dynasty. I thought it's pretty funny but it lacks a certain epic and mystical quality that good martial arts movies have. Then the second half of the movie complements the first half beautifully; it becomes more like a traditional martial arts movie. But what it lacks in innovation more than made up by the heart-pounding action set pieces. The movie is beautifully filmed, with unusual composition and gorgeous color. The score is unorthodox as well, it's almost like a rock score but not so modern that it becomes incongruous with old China. One small quibble, the stunt people are too easily spotted on many of the death defying scenes. All in all, highly recommended.

It is a remake, of sort. What I mean is that the main framework of the plot remains the same but there are surprises and new love relationships invented (which I won't spoil) for this version. Sounds good, right? Well, it could have been, if the Ip Man's director had actually spent some effort to search for charismatic leads to replace the iconic Leslie Cheung & Joey Wong. But their replacements are god awful, absolutely bland, wooden, and commonplace; in another word, ZERO star quality. The new plot inventions are interesting and could have made this version stand a tiny little bit apart from the original so audience won't negatively compare it with the excellent original; however, the 2 bad leads chosen sink any slim hope it has to achieve that. There are some inventive fight choreography but it is balanced out by the insensible and confusing editing. It's edited like the worst kind of music video, lots of quick cross cutting that results in a big hot mess. It is pretty much a waste of time, money, and effort.

I just watched this movie on PBS and didn't know it actually came out in '02. It is an enjoyable enough piece of Masterpiece Theatre-ish production about the English royals. Not overly familiar with the events and characters the film portrays, I was reasonably entertained. I do, however, have some problems with the casting, especially of James Wilby. I've seen his star turns in Maurice and A Tales of Two Cities and I do think he is a mighty fine actor. Unfortunately, I can't get over the distraction that, at the time of the production, he was 44 and he simply couldn't play a man in his 20s. Bertie first met Elizabeth when he was 25 and married her at 28. The scene when Elizabeth accepts his proposal and Bertie jumps up and down joyously is a good indication of what I'm talking about. It is painful and rather embarrassing to watch James acting like a gen-xer when he obviously looks much, much older. Ditto the scene when the brothers were rough housing in the garden party. I hate to say this, but he is not aging gracefully. Less distracting is the age difference between Juliet Aubrey who plays Elizabeth but still you wonder if the characters are in their thirties in the early scenes. Charles Edwards who plays Edward 8th has the reverse problem. The actor was 33 at the time and when his character goes back to meet with Bertie at the end of WW2, Edward should be around 50, yet he hasn't aged a day and he always looks younger than James Wilby no matter what time period they are in. I was just very bothered by this casting problem, another than that, it is an okay telepic.

I guess it's Halloween season but I suddenly thought about this little Italian rip-off of the Exorcist from the '70s. I saw it when I was in grade school (and haven't rewatched it since) but I can tell you I could barely fall asleep for a full week after watching this movie. I remembered it to be more scary than the Exorcist. But then again, I was in grade school. I rated it a 7 here based mainly on nostalgia and barely remembered scenes. Actually I didn't remember any but after reading the posted reviews, they sort of come back to me. I think I'll rent this for one of the horror movie nights with friends and see how it fares today. Sorry, this is not much of a review but I just wanted to share.

I went into the movie with substantially lowered expectations after hearing so much negative sentiments. And boy, was I shocked to find how rousing and emotional the movie turns out to be. Granted, I agree with many that the movie should've been longer to better develop the background and relationships between the characters; better dialogs written; some effects need to be cleaned up; continuity problems fixed (like the night and day goof at the final battle? Although I just rewatched the trailer and it shows a scene with the bridge where the sun is going down, maybe by the time they walk across it, night has descended?), etc. However, I think the sum is definitely better than parts, thankfully.

I'm not a sappy person (i.e. I find those teary moments in Survivors when they read letters from loved ones repulsively manipulative and pathetic. For crying out loud, they're not POW, they're gone less than a month to play a game!), but I find the emotional scenes stirring. Obviously, each of us react differently, but I felt the enormity of what's at stakes and saddened by the untimely death of certain characters. There is a sense of longing and loneliness at the end of the movie which I find very moving. The action sequences are fantastic and although the outcomes are never in doubt, you do care what might happen.

It's best enjoyed if you can sever the connection between the movie and comic book X-universe. If you keep comparing what's in the movie to the comics, you'll never be satisfied and ruin the enjoyment of the movies in and by themselves. I haven't read The Uncanny X-Men since the late 80's but there is simply no way a movie or 3 for that matter, can faithfully interpret a 40-year mythology. Even Marvel created the Ultimate series (X-Men, Spider-man) which is different from the established myth. All in all, the movie succeeds in spite of Brett Ratner's hackney direction.

It's really bad; slightly better if charged by 80's HK standard. The major problem with this movie is that it's a Chinese Ghost Story wannabe. It came out within one year of that instant classic and looked like it was rushed to capitalize on the fad. I didn't even know this movie existed until one day I chanced upon a HK/Asian kung fu cinema site and found a 4 star (out of 4) review of this film. The reviewer praises everything about the movie, equating it on par with Chinese Ghost Story, especially the orchestral score, except the leads. I think he might have seen an import version of the movie because of all the bad things about this movie, the score was the worst! It wasn't orchestral, it was synthesizer music, very 80's, very cheesy, especially in a movie about ancient China. Horrid. The male lead, a singer of a pop/art rock band by trade, is cringe inducing. The big bad was played by an actress of high repute in her younger days and now reduced to putting on a kabuki mask making scary faces, so sad. It reminds me of Bette Davis with thick pancake makeup in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane but at least that was a classic and tour de force acting. Hers was anything but that. The dueling Tao monks for comic relief are annoying and just take up time. Don't bother with this and just stick w/ the Chinese Ghost Story trilogy.

Talk about a movie about nothing. I don't usually feel this strongly about a movie but I cannot advise against seeing this movie more. It is like a film school project that probably won't even get a good grade. Too many long scenes of the outdoors and people smiling derangedly into the camera, and walking, and staring blankly into space, and skating and talking about absolutely nothing of importance. Granted, if you're an ice skating fan, the practice session is marginally interesting but this is not a movie about how to do a triple toe loop! There is just too much meaningless garbage. It might be a truthful recreation of what a real teenage might film with his first vidcam but that does not equate a good movie. Most of what regular people put on their vidcam is not fit for friends or family to see much less a paying audience. Apparently, the filmmakers think otherwise. As a coming out story, the movie conveys nothing about the inner thoughts or feelings of the character; neither does the character verbally tell us about how he feels, if he's struggling with it or anything. To say anymore of this movie is a waste of time. Avoid it at all cost.

With all due respect to the HK Movie Association who puts this movie as #9 on the 100 best Chinese films of the last 100 year, I believe this movie is rather dated. As with "Lady Snowblood" (1973) which I put in my two cents recently, they might be at the vanguard of their respective genres at the time, but now, 30 odd years later, they haven't age well at all. This happens, I think, especially with genre movies where technology plays an important part. Dramas such as "Rebecca" (Hitchcock) or "Now, Voyager" (Bette Davis), which are still some of my all-time faves, fare much better because technology won't really make them better; they already have great direction, story, pacing, acting, etc.

I also want to dispute a reviewer from UK who mentioned that this movie is much more Chinese than "Crouching Tiger" which is too westernized. I can't disagree with him more. Having actually read the wuxia novels that many of these movies are based on, I have to say "Crouching Tiger" beautifully captures the lyricism and essence of the wuxia world without any Western influence. But I digress.

The pacing of this movie is really too slow. Fully an hour was devoted to people, chiefly of the male protagonist, walking around and around in that same little village. An HOUR of nothing much happening to propel the story! As a matter of fact, a large portion of the 3-hour movie time is eaten up by showing people walking from point A to point B which is totally pointless. The bamboo forest scene will remind many of a similar scene in "House of Flying Daggers" and is probably its inspiration. Alas, it was done much better in the newer movie, due to better choreography, wire works, and kinetic energy that "Zen" sadly lacks. Same argument for all the other set pieces. The ending is anticlimactic since there is no tension when one party is the living Buddha (or something like that). The use of negative film to denote some sort of divine intervention is jarring and a little laughable.

During the opening credits, it indicates that this movie is based on a book which is written in the Manchu dynasty, probably in the late 18th or early 19th century. I don't know of a direct translation of the book but it is available in English with the title, "Chinese Ghost and Love Stories" by Pu Songling (I coin him the Chinese Edgar Allen Poe). It is one of the premiere books in Chinese literature. Not all his stories are about ghosts but all have a fantastical element and most have a moral to it. But the book are all short stories and none is long enough to be a novella; so stretching a short story to 3 hours entails lots and lots of padding; hence, all the walking. I haven't actually looked for the story that the movie is based on but I can say for sure that in old Chinese society and in Pu's stories as well, no woman who is from a respected family (as the female character is) would bed down with a practical stranger, EVER, unless she is a demon or a ghost, which does happen quite frequently in his stories and are almost always not a good thing. It probably had happened in real life when there was a strong attraction, but she was basically feeling pity for his mother and so decided to give her virginity to him. Yeah, I don't think so! The DVD quality from Tai Seng is abysmal which probably also contributes to my discontent. The transfer is horrid; pixilated (like in a VCD) in some scenes, looks like it's forever raining in dark scenes, some black spots permanently imprinted on the screen throughout the entire movie. The big fight scene that happens at the deserted house at night is so dark that is practically unwatchable. Moreover, the audio is muddy and barely audible even with volume turns to the loudest.

The Chinese title is translated as Heroine but the official English title is a better description of the movie given the spiritual element in the movie.

If you've seen "Kill Bill Vol 1" then you could see how many elements from this movie Quentin Tarantino has plagiarized, um, I mean paid homage to in KBv1. At the time of its release in 1973, this movie was probably ahead of its time. However, seeing it today, 30 odd years later, its impact is significantly lessened. I guess I'm either spoiled or numbed by the action set pieces that have come since that time; the action set pieces in this movie are all too brief and simple to illicit much excitement. The villains are too easily dispatched of. The second revenge set piece is similar to the finale of KBv1 but on a much smaller scale, shorter, not as intricately choreographed, and not as viscerally cathartic. On a humorous side note, I kept thinking during the movie that those kimonos the women wore were just too restrictive for them to run fast and free, how in the hell could they fight! Many people are unnerved by the amount of blood splashed around but I thought it was extremely funny and not at all bothersome. I mean how could you not laugh when blood gushed out like geyser or a punctured water balloon. I also like the political subtext (intended or not by the filmmaker, I don't know) in the movie. One can understand and appreciate the movie better to know a little of the political history of Japan at the time the story takes place and the DVD extras nicely include 16 screens of history lesson for your reference. All in all, for fans of female empowered action movies, this is probably one of finest early efforts. Worth watching but just don't expect too much.

I have heard many good things about this movie (both the original and the director's cut) before I saw it. I didn't read any of the reviews though because they usually give too much away and I wanted to watch the movie without some expectation clouding my judgment. Well, I saw it over two nights because it was so boring and it was a huge disappointment.

Many reviews point out how creative and original it is. But just because something is original and creative don't automatically make it good; and this movie surely isn't good or that original or creative. Stripped away the overused time travel sci-fi elements and all you have here is another bored, alienated, American suburban middle-class teenager movie. I wish there are movies that explore why American suburban middle-upper-class environment produces so many bored, alienated teenagers. Seems like a uniquely American phenomenon. Whenever I see movies like that, I tend to scream at the characters to pick up a sport, get a hobby, read some books, do something instead of laying around angry at everybody and being bored. I've never been able to sympathize or empathize with that mentality.

The movie might work better if removed of all the sci-fi trappings and refashion itself as a teenage American Beauty. A lot of people expecting a sci-fi movie came away disappointed at the insipid sci-fi gibberish. Granted, movies about time travel never really make sense because the nature of time travel is just not logical. Many reviews also didn't understand all the elements of the movie. Neither do I. Although I don't require a movie to explain everything, this movie just thinks itself too clever by putting in too many nonsensical elements for me to accept. One reviewer interprets the movie as about schizophrenia and all the sci-fi stuff just happens in the character's head. That's as good an explanation for this mess of a movie as any.

The extras on the Director's cut have a long feature on the loyal admirers of this movie. But they're all British, and in some of the interviews, they are so full of themselves because they know how to appreciate creative movies like this and they understand the movie and don't need to be told what it's about. So, the film makers are so desperate to make the movie appear to be special that they got a bunch of self-aggrandizing foreigners to say how much more intelligent they are because they "get" the movie. The documentary was also filmed in that annoying pretentious artsy style w/ part of a face and lighting from weird angle. Very much a turn off.

As a drama about alienation or schizophrenia, it is intensely boring; as a sci-fi genre movie, it is neither thought provoking nor exciting, it is still intensely boring.

I have never been a die hard fan of the original series maybe because I didn't actually see Episodes 5 and 6 at the cinema, the impact might not be as big watching on a TV screen. I did like Ep 6 and it was fun but not some seminal cinematic experience. So, I didn't have such high expectation going into the prequels. I thought Ep 1 and 2 were also fun but nothing spectacular. Like many action movies, they dazzle your senses while watching but the emotions behind it are so insubstantial that they hardly register afterward. I came to see Ep 3 after having read two glowing reviews from New York Times and Roger Ebert and I went in thinking it'd be good. I didn't go in with the heightened expectation that many turn fans have. And so I wasn't as disappointed as many were. Unfortunately, I was still bored through the first two-thirds of the movie. Lucas seems to have a pathological need to saturate every frame of the movie w/ too many visual stimuli. Everything is so busy that left my head spinning. I'm a little surprised that it has 7.9 rating here. Hardly worth that high mark but neither is it a 1 or 2 as many have given it. There seems to be no middle ground here. Either you hate it or love it for fans of the series. I totally concur w/ the other reviewers on the problems that plague this movie: bad acting, stiled dialog, truncated storyline, instant transition of Anakin from good to evil, etc. etc. All valid.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is still, for me, the ultimate cinematic achievement and experience in the SF/fantasy genre. The fact that the source material is superb probably helps a lot.

Not for nothing but I just watched Farscape: The Peacekeeper War last night and if you compare the two, you can tell right away what RotS has done wrong. Farscape: TPW is innovative, creative, with interesting use of aliens, great lines, full of tension and emotion, exciting, and with a much smaller budget, it is amazing how great it looks even in the battle scenes.

What could have been.

A 90's-style noir that lacks the moodiness and clean story-telling of the great 40's and 50's noir but with loads of gore and violence yet not enough action to be consistently entertaining.

Lena Olin's deliciously over the top performance as a psycho mafia hitwoman is a highlight of the film.

The plot is rather convoluted and doesn't make much sense when you think about it; all the crosses and double-crosses seem entirely unnecessary to achieve the characters' endgame. The cinematography is too bright and sunny to be a true noir, I believe.

The site wouldn't let me post this without at least 10 lines of text. This is ridiculous. I've seen reviews with fewer lines than that. Sorry to pad this review to achieve the mandatory 10 lines.

Well, it's just a dreadful, dreadful movie. If you've read the books, you most likely would hate it. They basically reinvent relationships and mix and match plot points between the characters so they are faithful to the books in name only. Even if you haven't read the books, the movie is just too much of a mess to recommend. The plot jumps around randomly, characters are cardboard, acting is rather feeble, and it feels much longer than the 90 minutes running time. Many of the major characters from the books (Pandora, Armand, etc.) are not even referred to once by name. They were badly cast and the only fun I had was to guess who they're supposed to be. Aaliyah was channeling Bela Lugosi as Akasha, that's was funny. So, why did I even give it 3 stars instead of 1. Well, at least it doesn't look cheap, that deserves one star. The special effects on the vampire movement is pretty cool and interesting, that's another star. The fact that they mangled the amazing source material so thoroughly is a feat worthy of another star!