Popcornalysis: CJ7 (长江七号)

Popcornalysis (pop-kawrn-nal-uh-sis)
Ability to analyze a movie and provide own opinions and critiques.
Difficulty: Moderate

Movie Review: CJ7

Photo above taken from http://www.heb.chinanews.com.cn/todaybd/news/dsc/2008-02-01/_1201822023_1.jpg.

Sypnosis
The latest comedy from Stephen Chow, CJ7 is a fantasy tale featuring state of the art visual effects. A poor laborer father (Chow) and his young sons lives are turned upside down when a fascinating and strange new pet enters their world. Amid the resulting comic mayhem, they ultimately learn a poignant lesson about the true nature of family and the things money can’t buy.

(Sypnosis taken from www.gv.com.sg)

*WARNING* This review may contain spoilers.

So is this movie meant to be a comedy or a tear-jerker? I doubt even director Stephen Chow had made up his mind. In recent reports, he talked about making movies that can move audience to tears rather than making them laugh like his previous movies did. I believe this movie could be his shout-out of his intention to change his style. Known to be the king of comedy in the Chinese movie industry with his successful creations of Shaolin soccer and Kungfu hustle that hit Hollywood, this move could be a very wrong one.

Let’s first talk about the nice parts above the movie. The animations were good and there were quite a few really funny scenes in the movie like what we were to expect from a Stephen Chow movie. I really like the part where the reporter in the television news program was interviewing a man who claimed he saw an UFO. However true his story may be but the photo he took of the UFO was coincidentally similar to the hat he was wearing and thus, no one actually believed him. Another scene that was really funny was the part where the kids made CJ7 do all sorts of expressions. The animators captured the distinct body language of all the various distinct incidents mentioned  and presented it really well which made the audience burst into laughter.

Despite all the ridiculously funny scenes in the movie, the storyline of the entire movie was a serious let down. What was the message that the movie was trying to put across? Was it mocking the rich-poor gap in China? Was it promoting fatherly love? Or some morale lesson about human behaviour? All these are possible but they were demostrated rather briefly. It’s like the intention and idea were there but not excecuted well enough.

Halfway through the show, especially after they showed what CJ7 could do to the electronic fan and after the father(Chow) died, most people would somehow expected the ending. Without any twist, the movied ended as predicted. CJ7 fixed the father and he returned. I almost shed tears during the part where the father was pronounced dead and the poor ittle boy became very very upset over it. But that was a moment where the solemn music and the touching emotions of the boy that really moved me. And I almost forgot to mention that little girl, Xu Jiao’s acting was brilliant. Yes! little girl… if you don’t already known that the boy in the movie was acted by a girl. She did a fantastic job with the way she used of body language and her combination of her verbal and non-verbal communication was perfect.

The movie on a whole was way off the standard from the other Stephen Chow comedies. Without the fantastic animation of the furry CJ7 and the acting of that little raising star(Xu Jiao), this movie may not even worth any good comments.

If you are looking for a comedy like Kungfu Hustle, look elsewhere, this is the wrong direction.

Popcornalysis: Ah Long Pte Ltd

Popcornalysis (pop-kawrn-nal-uh-sis)
Ability to analyze a movie and provide own opinions and critiques.
Difficulty: Moderate

Movie Review: AH LONG PTE LTD

Sypnosis
Ah Long Pte Ltd is a light-hearted black comedy about the triad world and the money-lending business. The movie takes on a humorous and sarcastic treatment on the underworld. It depicts how a young lady, Li Hua (Fann Wong) tries to restructure her money-lending triad into a professional and ‘loving’ triad that stands against the use of violence after she takes over from her triad leader (Richard Low) who retired. Her various restructuring plans (which are no doubt very creative) bring about hilarious results.

Li Hua tired of her mother’s constant nagging to get married, she finally relented and proposed to Mr Fang (Mark Lee), an effeminate dance instructor cum image stylist. Surprised to many and even herself, Mr Fang accepted the proposal. The unusual union, despite the misfits, soon blossom into love.

(Sypnosis taken from www.gv.com.sg)

*WARNING* This review may contain spoilers.

Ah, my first movie of the Chinese new year period would be Ah Long Pte Ltd. I chose to watch it first as it was the first on my list and it was the most anticipated of the 3 for me. I watched it at 120am this morning at GVmax and luckily, the movie was entertaining enough to keep me awake throughout.

First of all, I must clarify that I am kind of a Jack Neo’s movie person because I do anticipate and look forward to his movies. Because I do know that there are people we would “not waste money” on local films or Jack Neo’s films. So, my point of view may be a bit bias as I do have a lot of expectations from Jack Neo’s movies.

Ah-la-la-Long, ah-la-la-long, ah-lala-longlong-long-long-long-long…. That’s the catching tune that got stuck to me ever since I watched the trailer. I admit that the trailer definitely made me want to watch the movie as soon as possible. Nice song, nice footages… why not? Music may just play a major role in attracting movie-goers (for me at least). However, after watching the movie, I was a little disappointed.

First, there was all the abrupt deletion in several scenes. What I am talking about is the footages which were cut out by the Media Development Authority (MDA). From the link below (note the duration of the movie), a good 3 minutes were censored/cut from the original version.

http://www.mda.gov.sg/wms.www/resources_result.aspx?search=AH%20LONG%20PTE%20LTD&actor=&producer=&rating=&language=&decision=

I am not really sure what exactly they took out but I really hope that those were not the best parts. Looking at the report from MDA, it looks like they took out the sexual humour part and forced it into a PG rating. Probably because Jack Neo’s films are usually a family movie and they do not want to change their target audience.

Secondly, the whole storyline that was promised by Jack Neo to be different from the “My wife is a gangster” series, didn’t turn out to be too much of a difference afterall.

Another aspect of the movie I didn’t like, are the conversations between the characters. I really hate it when the do not converse in a common language. ‘A’ talks to ‘B’ in Cantonese, ‘B’ reply in Hokkien, talks to ‘C’ in Mandarin and ‘C’ reply in Cantonese. If the character only speak Hokkien and speaks Hokkien to who ever that speak to him in Hokkien, it is alright. But in the movie, our lead actress speaks in so many different languages and mostly in Mandarin. Which local triad boss is a woman and speaks Mandarin so perfectly? One from China? No, it’s not. If it was meant to be so due to some part of the storyline that explains why she speaks Mandarin so well, it would fit in better. But, it didn’t seem to be so. Hence, another setback.

However, I did enjoyed the movie. Why? All credits go to Mark Lee. He plays a Malaysian-mandarin accented sissy dance teacher cum fashion designer. His acting is so good that he made this Jojo Fang character comes to life. Almost every funny part from the movie that ejects you from your seat are done by him. I really enjoyed all the humour he brought into the movie that made this violence Ah Long movie an enjoyable comedy. Mark Lee definitely saved the movie from bad ratings. Well unless you want to include the pathetic half star out of five rating given by a local magazine of course.

Overall, I would reccommend that anyone who enjoys a different take in a gangster movie with all the creativity put in by the scriptwriters and a good laugh, you may consider watching this. I do not recommend this movie if you are someone who enjoys a unique storyline, a satisfactory and unexpected ending. Although this must be one of the lousier Jack Neo films, it is still worth watching again.

Just take away expectations and watch the movie. It would be a better experience.

Popcornalysis: Movie Reviews CNY 2008

Hello everyone, Happy Chinese New Year (CNY) once again. I will be watching the 3 movies as shown above and be giving my comments on them next week. The movies are: Kung Fu Dunk, Ah Long Pte Ltd and CJ7. Hope that you guys will watch them too and share your comments. =) Looking forward to the movies.

Happy Chinese New Year Everyone!

Ennalysis (en-nal-uh-sis)
Ability to analyze your environment and see it in a more profound perspective.
Difficulty: Hard

Picture above taken from http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41269000/jpg/_41269996_mickeyap.jpg

Happy Chinese New Year!!
It is the year of the RAT and I’ll like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous new year.

Here’s a question many people asked and even our marketing proffessor Neil questioned.
 ”It is the year of the RAT but why are they using Mickey MOUSE as a symbol for Chinese New Year?”

The answer is actually quite simple.

First of all, zodiac originated from China. Obviously, the language is in Mandarin. In chinese, it is the year of the “鼠”  which meant the year of the rat/mouse. In fact, everything regarding chinese new year or zodiac are all translated from Chinese. Therefore, the word “鼠”, can be translated to either mouse or rat. Hence, the meaning was lost in the translation.

So, it is actually nothing wrong with using Mickey Mouse (米老鼠) being a symbol in the year of  the Rat/Mouse (鼠).

Cheers! All the best to everyone in the brand new lunar year!!!

Adnalysis: IKEA Commercial

Adnalysis (ad-nal-uh-sis)
Ability to analyze an advertisement and give your personal opinion.
Difficulty: Easy 

Let me draw your attention to this very very interesting, Award-winning TV commercial. 

Classic non verbal communication.

This short clip brings out the message even without a single word or even music.

What is the message that IKEA is trying to put across?
The clip basically say it all.

Anyone have any comments on the clip? Let’s talk about it!

Adnalysis: Coke Advertisement

Adnalysis (ad-nal-uh-sis)
Ability to analyze an advertisement and give your personal opinion.
Difficulty: Easy

Please take a look at the advertisement. Feel free to watch it over and over again. Enjoy!

After viewing this ad, what makes you want to do? For me, I want to WATCH IT AGAIN!! lol.

This clip was introduced to me by my dearest and I was really hooked on to it. How do I put it in words? It blew me away. Definitely.

What happens between the time we put in the coin and the dispensing of the bottle of drink? We all know that the vending machine is processing and what we do is wait for that second or two for your drink to appear. With this ad, the creative team in Coca-cola put images into our mind to relate to the “processing” time. I felt that it was a really successful ad to communicate the process to us.

The music, the colours and all the graphics are simply fantastic. The anime-like creatures in the “coke world” were really cute and made the world look fun and happy. I want to draw your attention to several parts in the clip.

First, it is this worker creature who waves goodbye to the bottle when the flying creatures carried it away. It shows the enthusiasm on the all the workers in the “coke world” into processing the order.

Next, it’s the Kissing bugs. The concept of having the kissing bugs kissing, on my opinion, is to create the water dews on the outside of the bottle (Please comment if you think otherwise). I think it was really creative and seriously amazing.

Then followed by the snowmen. Poor snowmen!! They were carefully built and then grinded into snow in order to chill the bottle of coke. It brings out how detailed and important the process was to chill the bottle as snowmen were built and used instead of just ice cubes or snow flakes.

Lastly, when the bottle of coke was ready, it went through a celebration parade which congratulates all the workers in processing the bottle of coke. What a grand parade for this! It was definitely a job well done.

I love the last part when the bottle rolled out and the man picked it up as if nothing had happened. That portrayed exactly what we see on the outside. So real! So thought-provoking.

Now that you had read my views, watch it again (even if you already watched it like 10 times before reading what I wrote) and give me your views. Let’s talk about it! =)

Ennalysis: Perception of friends

Ennalysis (en-nal-uh-sis)
Ability to analyze your environment and see it in a more profound perspective.
Difficulty: Hard

Perception of friends

We all make friends throughout our lives. From our very first time we meet strangers at the void decks or at child care centres to people we meet now in university or at work, making new friends are part of our lives.

If you may realise by now, the older we grow, the harder it is for us to build a new and strong friendship with a stranger. Yes, I would like to emphasize that indeed he/she is a stranger whether you admit it or not. When we were younger, our perception of strangers were very different from our perception of strangers now. To many of us, classmates are not strangers but friends. You could be playing with this new guy in class when you are in primary two and you would be introducing him as your “friend” to your mother the very same day when she came to pick you up after school. That was how pure friendship were and that was how perceptions of strangers were to you at that time. As you grow up, you experience all the setbacks with your friends or those so-called friends who are actually strangers. This is when your experiences affects your judgement and perceptions. Through these experiences, the word stranger finally meant something to you.

To me, colleagues, classmates, schoolmates, teachers and lecturers are all not considered friends. A friend on my perceptive is a very strong and meaningful word. If you ask me, I seriously have very very few friends. I build my strong relationship with my classmates, schoolmates and acquaintances. These are sources to find a true friend. A true friend will be there for you when you need him/her to be there, a true friend lends you his/her ears when you need one and you are also willing to do the same in return. A true friend is really hard to find and for those of you who do have many friends, you must be really lucky and happy I reckon.

Now look around you and do a “check”, how many friends do you actually have? Are they really friends or merely acquaintances? Or are they actually strangers perceived by you as friends? =)