REVIEW : Lost and Love - 失孤 (2015)

At it's core, Lost and Love is a heartwarming, moving film that deals with the abominable crime of child trafficking in China. When a trafficker (cameo by Sandra Ng 吴君如) tries to sell off the abducted child in her arms, the conversation that takes place is nothing but chilling as she tries to coax the client to opt for a girl instead of the boy he is looking for. As if the child was livestock to be traded, she slashes the price for her and tells the man that girls can be a profitable investment as "girls can be sold off in the future". Whether by that she means marriage or prostitution, it's hard to say.

Lei Zekuan (Andy Lau 刘德华) is a father looking for his son who was abducted 14 years ago. With a flag that has a picture and details about his missing son attached to the back of his motorcycle, he travels all across China in hopes of finding him. Zeng Shuai (Jing Boran 井柏然) is looking for the family he was separated from when he was four, and like Lei's lost son, he was abducted. Their paths cross when Zeng helped Lei to get his bike fixed, before they head off as a two-man team to find what was originally theirs.

On the side, a mother (Ni Jingyang 倪惊阳) is distraught after losing her daughter, the same girl mentioned above who is being peddled by Sandra Ng's character. I wish I could say it ended well. Spoiler: it doesn't.

Totes adorbs.

Andy Lau might be the big star who would draw viewers to watch this film, but his acting pales in comparison with Jing who, relatively speaking, is a nobody. It is Jing as the troubled but charming Zeng that makes the movie memorable. But when they duo are paired together, the father-son relationship plays out convincingly. One thing that stands out the most for me was the panic attack that took place when each of them thought they've lost each other, and the annoyed berating that loosely masked their relief when they were found.

I blame Andy Lau's stiffness on his Mandarin

According to the director Peng Sanyuan (彭三源), the story for Lost and Love is based on a real life incident in China whereby a child was reunited with his parents when someone recognised him from a post on the social media website Weibo. That's what a part of this movie is about: searching for missing children by using the internet. While I understand the scenes where messages of missing children would be sent and shared throughout the Internet is the crux of the story, I can't help but feel that they are a little jarring.

There isn't much drama considering the subject at hand. There's no standing under the rain and making confessions while crying, it's by no means a soap opera. There's crying sure, and some screaming, but it's never really the focus here. Lost and Love is slow, it is mild to the taste. But it is also beautiful, it is graceful, it is poignant. Sometimes, movies like these are the ones that will leave the strongest impression after the credits have rolled, and they tell the best stories of life, love, and lost.

Like The Journey, but with more heartbreaks.

I rate it : 7.5/10 stars

THE GOOD : Picturesque landscapes of China's countryside; Andy Lau and Jing Boran have really good chemistry together.

THE BAD : The ending is honest, but not exactly what I'd call satisfying.

WATCH IT IF YOU...

• ...are a parent. 
• ...want an honest, slice-of-life-esque film. 

LOST AND LOVE - 失孤 (2015)

Genre : Drama

Runtime : 108 mins

Director : Peng Sanyuan

Cast : Andy Lau, Jing Boran

REVIEW : Insanity - 暴疯语 (2015)

You want to know what was the funniest thing in a movie that is pretty un-funny in general?

The director is named 李光耀, the English name David Lee might not ring any bells, but the Chinese name should.

Okay, that was not funny. I apologise.

Insanity opens with Fan Kwok-Sang (Sean Lau 刘青云) who is unemployed and bitter, not to mention paranoid with bouts of schizophrenia which lead to him throwing his wife out of the window and to her death. Three years later, under the care of Dr. Chow (Huang Xiaoming 黄晓明), he is deemed to have recovered from insanity and is released from the mental institution to reenter society as as normal person. But when something goes terribly, terribly wrong for Fan, it is up to Chow the perfectionist to pick up the pieces and to do whatever it takes to maintain his reputation

The Doctor and his Patient, or is it?

Psychological thrillers almost always share some similarities; they almost always have some sort twist that would make the audience go GASP at the grand reveal. You can say a psychological thriller would not be labelled so if there wasn't some sort of plot twist in it. There is one in Insanity, but early on in the movie we're already given little bits and pieces, hints that would lead us to draw our own conclusions ourselves on how the end would turn out to be. There won't be gasps in the cinema, but merely a couple of 'ooh's and 'ahhs'.

However, I do enjoy what occurs after the big reveal, when they uncover the inconsistencies, revealing the truth behind the illusion. It was that part where I found some pleasant surprises in a largely predictable film.

Sean Lau is excellent here; one moment you hate his guts, the next you're hoping nothing bad befalls him.

Insanity might not be the one film that will rewrite the genre, but it's still pretty good for a Hong Kong movie. (Lord knows when was the last time I've watched a good Hong Kong production) The tight cinematography constantly makes us question what is real and what isn't. The sound effects and music do a job of keeping you on the edge of your seat, and sometimes you can't help but wonder if Insanity was a horror movie instead. Paw Hee-Ching's portrayal as Fan's creepy mother-in-law helps keep up with the slasher-like quality of the movie.

People say that mother-in-laws are scary, I don't think this is what they had in mind.

I rate it : 7/10 stars

THE GOOD : Sean Lau as Fan Kwok-Sang is awesome

THE BAD : There's a couple of plot points that aren't resolved; it's predictable and there are no big surprises (although some might argue that to be a good thing, oh well)

WATCH IT IF YOU...

• ...fancy yourself a good Hong Kong thriller. 

INSANITY - 暴疯语 (2015)

Genre : Psychological Thriller

Runtime : 99 mins

Director : David Lee

Cast : Sean Lau, Huang Xiaoming, Alex Fong

REVIEW : Furious 7 (2015)

Cars don't fly, mate. But in the magical universe in which the Fast & Furious franchise is set in, they sure do. All. The damn. Time.

Former Black Ops agent Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) is out for blood, namely the blood of those who put his baby brother into a coma in Fast 6. Starting with Han (Sung Kang) who's death we've already witness in Tokyo Drift, post-credits scene in the last movie, and once more in this, he's ready to crush the rest of the team one by one. So what do you do when a highly trained ex-military psychopath is hot on your heels? Put the wife and kids somewhere safe, then take matters into your own hands of course. But things are not that bad since their goals align with the government's, they have help in the form of Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell). I mean, Dom (Vin Diesel) and Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) may be indestructible, but they still need unimportant military personnel to act as cannon fodder. 

So off they go, Dom, Brian (Paul Walker), Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), driving cars out of planes, driving cars out of skyscrapers before crashing into another skyscraper in Abu Dhabi, miraculously without anyone in the crew dying. You know, business as usual. 

Furious 7: Making more miracles than Jesus ever did.

I could spend a lot of time and a lot of words picking apart the logic that holds this movie together; things that don't make sense, or cases where common sense is apparently not that common. In the ultimate showdown, the crew is hunted by Mose Jakande (Djimon Hounsou) in a military-grade chopper on the streets of Los Angeles. Here's the thing: no government would have allowed an unauthorised military chopper roam any city at street-level, not to mention that we are talking about 'Murica over here. You and I both know that it would have been shot out of the skies before it could even reach the borders of the country.

And lets talk about Dom. Here's a tip: when you have a very obvious advantage over your mortal enemy, chucking it out of the window for the sake of your bravado is not the way to go. At the final face-off, Dom had a loaded shotgun pointed at Shaw's head. He could have fired it and be done with that pain in his side for once and for all. But what does he do instead? Empty his gun to the skies and challenge Shaw to a brawl, mano a mano.

Could have been avoided if Dom had just fired his gun at the target. Then again. where's the fun in that?

But nope, not going to pick it to shreds. Nope. Absolutely not. You do not go into a Fast & Furious movie expecting realism. In fact, action movies like these are the last place you should bring your thinking caps to, lest you end up with a piercing headache.

Before that, can we just talk about Letty getting her memories back just by having a car crash through the roof? I don't think that's how amnesia works.

Okay. Sorry. I'll shut up now.

Tej Parker and Roman Pearce, arguably the best thing in the entire movie.

All that aside, Furious 7 might not adhere much to the rules of logic, overall it is still an entertaining ride, even if it's a little long with over-the-top and drawn-out action sequences. If that's your thing, by all means, go for it and you probably won't be disappointed.

The people behind the franchise could be bashed for a lot of things, but if there's one thing they deserve a standing ovation for, it is how they decided to handle Paul Walker's character after his death back in 2013. If you don't already know, the cast was only halfway done with filming when Walker died in a tragic car crash. They could have killed Brian O'Conner as well, in fact in Furious 7, you would have held your breath more than once, thinking to yourself, "Is this it? Is this the end for O'Conner?" But no, just like Dominic and Hobbs, O'Conner proves to be indestructible. Instead, they opt to have Paul Walker's brothers stand-in for the unfinished scenes and with the magical fairy dust that is CGI, it felt like Paul was always still there.

As Brian drives off onto another path, an epilogue with montages from previous movies of him is played as a tribute to the late actor. For Paul, indeed. He may not walk among us anymore, but at least in the world of Fast & Furious, Paul Walker is alive and well. In Brian O'Connor, he is immortal.

See you again, Paul.

I rate it : 6/10 stars

THE GOOD : That last scene tho

THE BAD : Pretty much any trope in any action movie you've ever seen is in this movie. All of them.

WATCH IT IF YOU...

• ...would like to watch The Rock vs The Transporter.
• ...would like to watch Vin Diesel vs The Transporter.

• ...just want to bid a last farewell to Paul Walker/Brian O'Conner.

FURIOUS 7 (2015)

Genre : Action

Runtime : 137 mins

Director : James Wan

Cast : Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, Tyrese Gibson, Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges, Jason Statham

That One Time I Decided to Marathon All Six Fast & Furious Movies

Warning : there may be spoilers.

Don't shoot me, but up until a couple of days ago, I have never watched a single movie in the Fast & Furious franchise. I never watched the first one maybe it's because I was too young for it when it came out; I didn't watch Tokyo Drift because of reasons I don't know/remember; I didn't watch Fast Five because well, I've never watched the previous four and I didn't feel like starting then.

I gave the same excuse when people asked me if I would want to watch the latest installment. I wasn't planning to watch it because I'm not the type of person who would watch a sequel before or without watching the previous movie. If Furious 7 has six movies before it, then if I was ever going to watch it, it would mean I have to go through all six movies before it. It's a principle I hold true to, one that I don't like to break.

But peer pressure, it's a scary, scary thing. When almost every one you know has watched F7 and that's all they'd talk about. Well, let's just say it's one hell of a motivation. And you know, I have this movie blog thing going on, to not have a foot in something that's so popular would be a crime, if not an outright sin.

So eventually, I gave into the pressure and bought tickets to watch Furious 7. But because of who I am, it meant I have a couple of days to go from The Fast and the Furious (2001) to Fast & Furious 6 (2013). Since each movie is about two hours long, I figured it was going to take me about 12-hours before I could sit for what might be the final movie in the Fast & Furious franchise.


9th April 2015 at 8:50 – started watching The Fast and the Furious that came out 14 years ago; back when Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) had curly hair and Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster) looking like Nina Dobrev's doppelganger. Oh not to mention the abomination that is software UI from Y2K. And back when floppy disks was still an actual thing and not just an icon.

Year 2001, when everything was sepia-toned.

So a quick summary of what it's all about if you don't already know: Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) runs a garage with his crew while racing cars on the side, but in reality they rob trucks of electronic equipments. (DVD players and the likes) Brian O'Conner is an undercover cop who is tasked to infiltrate the crew for their criminal evidence. It's the same old thing in the same old book. At the end of the movie, Dominic's many speeches on family pays off when Brian lets him escape.

Perhaps back in the days this movie would have been the coolest blockbuster to have ever been released. However, watching it now in the year 2015, I just find it hilarious. For one, the dialogue made me laugh out loud in more than one occasion.

Brian : Hey man. He was in my face.
Dominic : I'm in your face.

But hey, it was the year 2001, so I'll give it a break.


10:33 – Started 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003). I used to think that was a genius idea for a title. I'm sorry. What can I say, I was a kid.

Almost everyone from the first movie is gone, save for Brian. After letting Dom escape, he has lost his job as a cop and now has to make a living by street-racing. Things are not that bad since he's pretty good at it, earning himself a wicked street name 'Bullitt'. But when US Customs takes him in, he is given a deal: his criminal records for one undercover job to bring down Carter Verone (Cole Hauser).

Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson) AKA my favourite person in the entire series, enters the game when Brian seeks him out to be his partner in his mission. He's the comic relief without being cringe-worthy; in this type of film, it's a hard gem to find.

Also in 2F2F, Ludacris as Tej Parker with so much #sweg in that afro.

13:50 – So began The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006). It's a whole new cast and boy it is a cast that is hard to sit through. The opening already had me in stitches at how unbelievable it was. Supposedly, our main guy named Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) is in high school. The thing is, every student looked too old to be in college, let alone high school. It may not be the first or only movie to have actors play charatcers that are much younger than their actual age, but this stands out like a sore thumb in Tokyo Drift.

Sorry, but Sean Boswell is not the new Brian O'Conner.

Sean here has gotten himself into a lot of trouble and to keep him from juvie, he is sent to live with his father in Tokyo, without knowing a word of Japanese during his first day in school. Even though he was warned not to go near a car, he gets mixed up in Tokyo's racing crowd which leads him to meeting a couple of friends including Han Seoul-Oh (Sung Kang), who we'll be seeing in the movies after Tokyo Drift.

A bit of a detour here: Is it me or is Han Seoul-Oh named after Han Solo?

Han Seoul-Oh, Han Solo.

This is Justin Lin's first Fast movie but so far, it's definitely the weakest one yet. It's uninspiring and all it does is make me want to punch Sean in his sorry face. He is not a likeable character, then again almost everyone in this movie isn't. It's hard to tell if this is due to poor writing or bad acting. Probably both.

Since Tokyo Drift takes place after Fast 6 but before Fast 7, personally I think it's fine if you skip this. It may be Han's first appearance in the series but there's not much of an introduction for his character. So like I said, perfectly fine if you ignore this disappointment. At least I wished that someone told me that before I jumped into the series.


At this point, I took a break. Because, you know, obligations, responsibilities, killing dragons in Skyrim. That sort of thing.


11th April 2015 at 16:40 – Managed to squeeze out a 6-hour block to carry on with the marathon. Finally we're back with the O'Conner/Toretto team in Fast & Furious (2009). -fist pump- As they say, if it ain't broken, don't fix it. The dynamic between the duo made the first movie work, and it's safe to say it pulled the franchise back from the dead that is Tokyo Drift. Granted, I'm a little hesitant to say that it's just as good or better than the first movie, but then compared to the previous one, it's definitely miles and miles better. My disgust for Tokyo Drift knows no bounds.

Brian is back as an FBI agent this time and the newest Big Bad on the radar is Arturo Braga (John Ortiz). 15 minutes into the movie, Dom receives a phone call from his sister Mia telling him that Letty has been killed. -gasp- Eventually the two brothers reunite and the movie does the thing that all Fast movies do.

#BrOTP

I'm not really sure if I like this movie though. While I don't dislike it, I don't like it either, To put it simply, Fast 4's not exactly memorable, but it's nice to see the boys back together again.


18:20 – I believe Fast Five (2011) was what revived the entire franchise. I certainly remember how everyone around me was raving about it, albeit the hype was much less than what Furious 7 is receiving now. I do see why everyone spoke so highly about it now, because it is in this movie where everyone just decided to bring out the biggest guns they had. If anything, you have two cars dragging a giant vault all around Rio, the highlight of the entire series so far.

Has anyone given thought to how strong those chains must be?!?!?!

After helping Dom escape prison, Brian and Mia team up with Vince from the first movie to hijack a train and steal some cars. Things go awry because they always have to and they always do, the team flee, and we get to see an exhilarating scene of Dom, Brian and Car leaping off a cliff then into the waters below.

You also have Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson appearing as DSS agent Luke Hobbs for the very first time, kicking Vin Diesel's ass in the process. If that doesn't convince you to watch at least Fast Five out of all the F&F movies, then perhaps the entire series won't be up your alley.

Can't touch this do dododo dodo dodo

20:30 – We're almost at the end of the line. We're sticking with the crew + agent Hobbs in Fast & Furious 6 (2013) as they head to London to take down Owen Shaw (Luke Evans). As it turns out, Letty is still alive but has lost all her memories because convenient plot device is convenient.

Of course, the crew wins in the end, although not before taking down tanks and planes. They've wiped their slate clean, everyone is a free man. Letty is back just not with her memories, the O'Conners are together and safe, the crew enjoys their usual roast party. The only loser seems to be Han as he has lost Gisele (Gal Gadot) and he's ready to head to Tokyo. If you've watched the accursed Tokyo Drift, you should be screaming at the screen now, begging Han not to go.

Sure enough, in the post-credits scene, Han dies in a fiery explosion but it is revealed that it was in fact murder by what is revealed in the next movie as Owen Shaw's big brother (Jason Statham). We've got ourselves nicely set-up for Furious 7.

"You don't know me, but you're about to."

In about 12 hours, I've seen enough babes, boobs, cars and Corona to last me a lifetime. I've heard enough smart-ass one-liners that my eyes are tired from rolling too much.  Did I learn anything? Probably something about family, but it's so cheesy that it doesn't stick that well. Am I a fan of the series after committing so much time to it? No, not really, although my heart wavered a little after watching Fast Five. Nonetheless, I'll still be going into the cinema for one last ride.

Now, time for Furious 7.

REVIEW : Insurgent (2015)

And the Divergent series is back, this time with a longer and clunkier official title of The Divergent Series: Insurgent. But if I'm being completely honest, it came back with less bang than the first movie did.

Insurgent picks up from where the previous film left off: the main character Tris (Shailene Woodley), her very hunky boyfriend Four (Theo James), her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) who runs funny, and the very annoying git that is Peter (Miles Teller), have escaped with their lives and are seeking refuge in Amity camps. On the other side of town, the bad guys that are led by Erudite leader Jeanine (Kate Winslet) have found themselves a box that was guarded by Tris and Caleb's now-dead parents, a box that is rumoured to hold an important message from the Founders on what to do in case of a crisis. And there is no other way to open it than by using a Divergent. (It is only after watching the movie and refreshing my memory by reading the book's summary did I realise that this box and the tests needed to crack it open do not exist in bookverse. Apparently, it's not the only big difference there is.)

This whole thing? Doesn't happen in the book.

Be warned though : Insurgent is not a movie you can go into without watching Divergent first. The closest you have for a summary is Jeanine on monitors on the side of police trucks, explaining how every last Divergents—those who fit into too many boxes in their Faction society—must be hunted down because "they are a threat to the fabric of the Faction society.

I loved Divergent. I've never read the book, never planned on watching it in the first place since one can only take so much YA dystopian fiction before feeling completely nauseous. And maybe it's because of that, maybe it's because I never had much of an expectation in the first place, I was blown away by Divergent. Perhaps that's the beef I have with Insurgent; I was so blown away by Divergent that a certain level of expectation has been fixed, I needed something more, something better from Insurgent in order to be impressed. I thought Divergent was amazing simply because I had no expectations going in and it was easy to impress me. Insurgent had to try harder this time and it's sad to say that it didn't.

Naomi Watts plays Four's mother; it's just disconcerting that she looks like she's the same age as him.

It's not to say that Insurgent is bad; as someone who watched it because she loved the first movie, it was decent at best. Everything was just all right. The writing is just all right; the world that the series is set in seems to be a little less all right than in Divergent for some reason. If there's something in this movie that is better than all right, it would be Shailene Woodley's acting, and the special effects in Tris's dreams and the countless simulations she's thrown into. 

If there's one thing that fundamentally wrong with Insurgent when you compare it with Divergent is the soundtrack, or the lack of it to be more precise. I won't deny the possibility that the reason I love Divergent as much as I do was partly because of its killer soundtrack, scenes with Ellie Goulding crooning in the background or M83's ballad sending shivers down my spine, nothing of that sort exists in Insurgent. Who knows, maybe they spent most of the budget on special effects and allocated little to none for the music department.

In short, Insurgent is a much poorer sequel to Divergent on many fronts. Maybe they're trying to emulate the book series since each book becomes progressively worse in terms of quality and plot. But hey, that's a story for another day.

Raise your hand if you have ever been kissed by Shailene Woodley.

I rate it : 6/10 stars

THE GOOD : Shailene Woodley's acting and the special effects, that's pretty much it.

THE BAD : So much wasted talent in one movie (Naomi Watts, Octavia Spencer, even Maggie Q who returns from the first but has an appallingly short time onscreen in this installment); almost everyone seems to be an asshole in this movie

WATCH IT IF YOU...

• ...are a fan of the first movie. (Just don't get your hopes too high up)

• ...are a fan of the book series (Obviously)

• ...would like a reunion of Shailene Woodley's famous onscreen boyfriends.

INSURGENT (2015)

Genre : Sci-Fi Adventure

Runtime : 119 minutes

Director : Robert Schwentke

Cast : Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Miles Teller, Kate Winslet, Ansel Elgort