ASTERIX AND OBELIX: MISSION CLEOPATRA dvd review

UK PAL DVD

Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1

DD 5.1 French

DD 5.1 English (dub)

Subtitles: English

IMDB

 

MOVIE: 9.5

VIDEO QUALITY: 9

AUDIO QUALITY: 9

ENGLISH SUBTITLES: 10

EXTRAS: 0

 

I have seen many movie adaptations of mainstream or obscure comic books from around the world. I think that the best Hollywood adaptations of graphic novels are Watchmen, Sin City, 300, Kick-Ass, Scott Pilgrim, and V for Vendetta. Sure, I love the Spiderman and Nolan’s Batman movies, but those aren’t adaptations of any of their particular books. I would say that I’m a casual comic-book fan of American comics, but I take my European comics very seriously (Tintin and Asterix, for example). I don’t like it when movie adaptations of European comic books are messed up. When the first Asterix movie came out – Asterix & Obelix vs. Caesar – I was pretty disappointed because it was just hijacking the title of the original comic book. The movie is nothing like the original comic book – far from being a movie adaptation of the book. But over the years, I’ve learned to appreciate this film once I accepted it as a new Asterix adventure and not being an adaptation of its book. But when Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra came out, now this was the Asterix movie I dreamed of!

Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra is a perfect movie adaptation of the original comic book Asterix and Cleopatra. Alain Chabet, more known as an actor, directed and wrote the screenplay for this film. He also stars in the film playing a really funny Julius Caesar who’s the boyfriend to the hottest Cleopatra put on screen, Monica Bellucci (sorry, Elizabeth Taylor). In their Egyptian palace, the two leaders bicker like a regular couple and just casually make a bet with each other: Cleopatra wants to prove to Caesar that Egyptians are greater people than Romans by building another palace in just three months. So Cleopatra hires the young, up-and-coming architect played by the extremely funny Jamel Debbouze. Cleopatra’s usual architect, who is old and traditional, is jealous because he’s not chosen to do the job, so he does everything possible to prevent the younger architect from succeeding. Knowing that it’s impossible to build a huge palace in just three months, the young architect travels to Gaul to get the help of Getafix the Druid who can make a magic potion that can give anyone superhuman strength. So Asterix, Obelix, and Getafix travel to Egypt to help the young architect complete the palace within 3 months. Along the way, the Gauls have to deal with Romans, the other villainous architect, and even pirates that try to stall their task.

Chabet totally understands Asterix and its humor. The screenplay is so funny and has the exact same type of humor that was in Goscinny and Underzo’s book. I really wish that Chabet could direct any future Asterix sequels. It’s too bad he didn’t get to film the third Asterix film, Asterix at the Olympic Games, which was just a piss-poor film. The acting in Mission Cleopatra is perfect as well. Besides Chabet and Bellucci, it’s a treat to see the chemistry between Gerard Depardieu and Christian Clavier. They have been a funny duo in other French films as well, and they certainly are awesome in this film playing Obelix and Asterix.

If people say that Sin City the movie is like the graphic novel coming to life on film, then so is Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra. This movie is like a live-action comic book – from the flow of the film to the funny characters and to the impressive eye-candy special effects. Watching this film gave me the same pleasure as reading the book, or any Asterix book for that matter.

For people who want English subtitles or an English dub, the only way to go is to find this DVD from the United Kingdom. The DVD quality is excellent. The anamorphic widescreen video quality has sharpness and detail that is quite good. The video appears free of edge enhancement and pixelation, which makes a natural, crisp-looking image as good as it’s going to get for a DVD. The French DD 5.1 is really active as well. This movie is full of action with catapults, kicks, and punches so the audio quality is excellent, with clear dialogue and effects. Bass is strong, deep and tight in the action sequences. The English dub is sort of silly sounding but it’s good enough for kids who can’t read subtitles yet.

There are no extras on this DVD.

This movie was made for blu-ray, but it’s only available in Spain and Germany without English subtitles. It’s pretty strange that the blu-ray isn’t even available in France. But either way, this UK DVD is a perfect way to enjoy this masterpiece adaptation of a French comic book. For fans of the Asterix comic book, it’s a masterpiece. For people who have never read the Asterix comic book, it’s still a pretty entertaining and witty movie. I’m sure the non-Asterix fans would rate this film lower, but I just loved this movie as a film by itself and as an adaptation of the comic book.

October 17, 2011
Categories: A . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: 4 Comments

7 HUSBANDS FOR HURMUZ blu-ray review

Turkey Region B blu-ray

1080i Widescreen 1.78:1

Turkish: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1,  LPCM Lossless 7.1, DD 5.1 EX

Subtitles: English, Turkish, French, German, Dutch

IMDB

 

MOVIE: 7

VIDEO QUALITY: 9.5

AUDIO QUALITY: 9.5

ENGLISH SUBTITLES: 6

EXTRAS: 2

 

After watching the trailer for this 7 HUSBANDS FOR HURMUZ, I thought it would be a fun, visually entertaining eye candy-type comedy. And I wasn’t disappointed in that respect. What I liked about the film is that the majority of the film showcased extremely hot Turkish ladies. This is one of those movies that proves that if you don’t have an extremely good story, just fill up the screen with a lot of hot actresses. I was even surprised that this movie is also a musical. There were about seven to nine very catchy rewatchable songs in 7 HUSBANDS FOR HURMUZ.

Here’s the kicker – it’s hard to tell if this movie was horribly written or if the English subtitles were awful. I’m leaning towards the subtitles problems. Even though the English subtitles were pretty much grammatically correct with good spelling, the subtitles were not translated well. I really had no idea what was going on in this film. It’s like everyone was double-talking or babbling. While the screenplay may have been witty and funny, there is no way to figure that out if you don’t speak Turkish. I did read other reviews of this film and it did get mixed reviews with people criticizing the screenplay.

From what I could make of the story, I couldn’t figure out if the main girl, Hurmuz, was looking for 7 husbands, had 7 husbands already, was hiding from all 7 husbands, or if she was trying to hook other hot Turkish ladies up with the 7 husbands. I would have to probably watch this movie two more times to figure out the gist of the film. But in the meantime, damn this movie had great music and extremely attractive women.

The Turkish blu-ray is of excellent quality. The 1080i is just awesome. The colors stand out, they pop with amazing clarity. The audio is just about perfect as well – perfectly mixed and really comes alive during the songs.

The only extras are a trailer, teaser and photo gallery.

This mainstream Turkish movie is worth watching for a change from the usual art-house Turkish film that gets exported to other countries. It’s just too bad the English subtitles on this blu-ray sucks.

October 17, 2011
Categories: S . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: Leave a comment

THE LOVE ETERNE blu-ray review

Hong Kong Region A blu-ray

1080p Widescreen 2.35:1

Mandarin: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Dolby TrueHD 5.1

Subtitles: English, Mandarin

IMDB

 

MOVIE: 9

VIDEO QUALITY: 9.5

AUDIO QUALITY: 9.5

ENGLISH SUBTITLES: 10

EXTRAS: 7.5

 

The Love Eterne is the first emotional Shaw Bros film that I have ever seen. Out of all the many films that I have seen from the Shaw Bros, this film is unexpectedly unique for a film from the 1960s. For anyone that knows a little about this film, the movie is like a Romeo & Juliet Chinese musical, which was hugely popular in its day (as like a Chinese version of The Sound of Music) and is considered a classic, which I definitely agree with. The movie is famous for its Huangmei opera style – a particular style of singing, as well as actors being either played by all boys or all girls.

While I do agree that the music in this film is hypnotic and keeps the movie moving at a very good pace, as well as amazing acting from both of the female leads, this movie can be interpreted in many ways. I had read reviews of this film before watching it, and I found out that Ang Lee has certainly been inspired by this film. I’m happy to have known that because with Crouching Tiger and Brokeback Mountain in the back of my mind, The Love Eterne is a really interesting film if it’s interpreted from a sexual political, women’s rights standpoint. I watched this film thinking that these were two women in love, not a woman and a man (played by a woman) in love. I felt that the movie is more emotionally powerful watching the film like this in which the movie is about two female lovers fighting society’s closed-minded norms, with so many obstacles preventing them to function or love each other during this time period. Watching the film with that in mind, it makes the story in this movie timeless, as these issues are still apparent today. The main female character dresses up as a man so that she can study in college because she’s an individual, she doesn’t want to be stupid, and doesn’t want to follow her parents traditional strict rules of how a woman should be, etc. And as she is in college, the audience sees a whole slew of other women dressed up like men studying that don’t want to be subservient idiots in a sexist society. She then meets another woman at her college who believes she’s a man even though she was born as a woman (my interpretation). So they both create a bromantic relationship as one is pretending to be a man, while the other one thinks she’s a man, and then they fall in love. It’s actually a pretty bizarre film if you watch it as a same-sex romance film. The Love Eterne is sort of like a better version of Boys Don’t Cry practically! You don’t have to watch this as a lesbian film, but I think it works better as one.

Onto the Region A Hong Kong blu-ray:
Oh…baby…Intercontinental Video are professionals. Period. Wow! Who are these guys? Holy crap, this is the first old Hong Kong movie on blu-ray that is a real blu-ray! A real, restored blu-ray! (Kam & Ronson, I like that you are releasing old Chinese movies too, but come on, learn something from Intercontinental!) If you were impressed with the slew of Shaw Bros movies that they remastered onto DVD, wait till you see this blu-ray. The video is basically perfect. I would have given it a perfect 5 out of 5, but the video sometimes had a very, very slight camera shake to it. I’m not sure if that’s how the original film was, or if that’s something they could have fixed, or if it’s just something that my blu-ray player was doing. But either way, damn this blu-ray looks amazing! The video looks three-dimensional, colors are crisp and eye-popping! You can see good skin tone, textures, clear background, clean video, not a scratch, not a hair, not a speck. It just looks amazing!

The audio is very good too. The Mandarin DTS-HD 5.1 does the job well done. It still has a slight hollow claustrophobic sound to it, but what do you expect – 98 percent of the movie was most likely filmed on an indoor set. The audio is solid – it’s clear and sounds excellent during the songs. It’s an audio recorded from the 1960s, not from 2011. It’s perfectly fine and does what expected. It certainly sounds better than any of the audio choices on the K&R blu-rays.

I really, really like Intercontinental for one main reason – the English subtitles! The English subtitles on the Love Eterne blu-ray are practically perfect! Wow, why can’t the rest of Chinese blu-ray companies do that? I can’t take another Hong Kong movie with Chinglish. As I remember now, the Shaw Bros movies released on DVD by Intercontinental always had decent English subtitles. Me likey!

The extras are very nice too – two trailers for The Love Eterne (one original trailer and one 2003 trailer which was probably created for their DVD version), and also trailers for their other blu-rays – The Kingdom and the Beauty and The Three Smiles. There are also two trailers for the One-Armed Swordsman and the New One-Armed Swordsman, which I assume will be their next two blu-ray releases since they are getting advertised on this blu-ray. There is also an interesting English-subtitled documentary about Huangmei opera which runs for about 15 minutes.

The Love Eterne is a very interesting film with a surprising epic climax. I now have two favorite Shaw Bros. films – Come Drink With Me and The Love Eterne. I highly recommend this Shaw Bros. classic and this amazing quality blu-ray!

October 14, 2011
Categories: L . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: Leave a comment

THE RAINBOW THIEF blu-ray review

Germany Region B blu-ray

1080i Widescreen 1.78:1

English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (original)

German: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (dub)

IMDB

MOVIE: 8.5

VIDEO QUALITY: 9.5

AUDIO QUALITY: 9.5

EXTRAS: 1

 

I’ve never seen The Rainbow Thief until blind-binding this German blu-ray, and it’s surprisingly an exciting movie starring a bunch of old timers! If no one had told me this was an Alexandro Jodorowsky film, I would have thought it was a Terry Gilliam film.

One of my all-time favorite films is The Holy Mountain, so I was expecting some outrageous weirdness that would need to be interpreted after many viewings. Just the opposite, I felt like I was watching a better version of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, minus the CGI fantasy scenes. The movie is just a nice, slightly wacky Dickens-type story about the adventures of a thief, played with serious intensity by Omar Sharif. Peter O’Toole is good as his usual weird flamboyant self, and Christopher Lee is great in his short crazy role at the beginning of the movie.

The Rainbow Thief is filmed so well and it’s surprisingly one of my favorite edited films now, because Omar Sharif was chugging all over the place as if he was 20 years old. The directing and editing was just amazing because it was really impossible to tell the stunt man from Omar. That’s great editing. If this movie had cast a younger thief copying the style of Omar Sharif’s intense acting, I was thinking that the role could have been played by Robert Downey Jr.

The music was also excellent, great gypsy and classical infused with the funny visuals in the film.

I remember how exciting it was to see DeNiro and Pacino reunite for their Michael Man film, Heat. Well, I feel the same for the reuniting of Sharif and O’Toole in this film, since they played so well together in Lawrence of Arabia. It’s sort of sad watching them old in this film since they were so young in Lawrence of Arabia. But their age does not slow them around in this film – they are just a bunch of old timers chugging around as if on speed. It’s amazing how O’Toole and Sharif still look the same as well – for the past 30 years, they have always looked like they are 65 years old!

I now rank The Rainbow Thief right under The Holy Mountain, then El Topo, and then Santa Sangre. The movie is certainly worth it for the amazingly-filmed rainstorm/flood scene in the climax of the film – it was something like out of a Rolland Emmerich or James Cameron film.

The German blu-ray has perfect video and audio quality. For such an obscure title, Ascot Elite Home Entertainment gave this film a very generous make-over. The well-lit and dark scenes all look equally crisp and clear. Great colors, no DNR – just a perfect video presentation. The English DTS-HD 2.0 is very impressive, especially during the climactic flood scenes. The subwoofer was certainly active in the film, which was a nice surprise. The only extra is the trailer with original English audio.

Very nice film – it’s just a crime that Jodorowsky hasn’t directed more films, because he is a masterful director. It’s too bad he doesn’t direct any of those Euro sci-fi comics he had written over the years. And I can’t wait till The Holy Mountain gets a blu-ray release somewhere in the world.

October 14, 2011
Categories: R . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: Leave a comment

SIXTY MILLION DOLLAR MAN blu-ray review

Hong Kong Region A blu-ray

1080p Widescreen 1.85:1

Cantonese: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (original)

Mandarin: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (dub)

Subtitles: English, Mandarin

IMDB

MOVIE: 7

VIDEO QUALITY: 7

AUDIO QUALITY: 6.5

ENGLISH SUBTITLES: 5

EXTRAS: 1

 

60 Million Dollar Man is recommended for very serious fans of Stephen Chow only. I was happy to see it since I have never seen this movie, but the film is all over the place. But Chow is still funny as hell in it. He has such a gift for humor. I’ve seen better Chow films, but this movie had at least one scene out of all of his films which made me laugh til the tears came – it involved a parody of Pulp Fiction, an injection, and Chow’s crotch – this scene was just pure comic genius!

I loved the special effects in the film though – some may think it’s dated. But I prefer these old school special effects rather than newer films with CGI overkill.

Stephen Chow is just so damn funny and he works his magic in even mediocre films such as this one. I normally can’t stand comedy films from China, but Chow seems to be the only one that can make a good comedy from his native country. He is right up their with comic geniuses such as Peter Sellers, Charlie Chaplin, and Jacques Tati.

As for the blu-ray, I’m going to state my usual disclaimer about Kam & Ronson HK blu-rays:

Lower your expectations. People say that these blu-rays from this Hong Kong company KAM & RONSON are just upconverted DVDs. Maybe so, but they still look and sound better than previous dvd versions, even if the difference is slight and not a huge upgrade. Don’t expect them to be reference blu-ray examples.

This Kam & Ronson blu-ray is fair as expected. The video is full of scratches, dirt, and white specs popping up all over the place, but it looks really good during bright scenes and decent during darker scenes. The colors did pop out and I’m sure this blu-ray looks better than the best DVD version regardless or not if this blu-ray is just an upconverted DVD. I was happier with the video more than with the audio. The audio basically sounded like a 2.1 Stereo soundtrack, only that it sort of had a muffled sound which hadn’t been on previous K&R blu-rays. It didn’t ruin the movie-watching experience though. I was more focused on trying to interpret the English subtitles on this film. Even though there are no spelling mistakes, these were Chinglish subtitles. I don’t think they remastered the English subtitles as I was hoping they would. If the subtitles were translated correctly, I probably would have rated this movie higher because I do sense the movie had a funny screenplay, but I was too distracted by the poor translation. There were tons of witty lines in this movie that did not get translated properly.

The only extra is the trailer to the movie.

If you don’t care about the slight upgrade or if you already own this on DVD, then I wouldn’t buy this blu-ray. But I never owned this movie on DVD before and this blu-ray is selling for 5 dollars more than the DVD, so the blu-ray is worth it then, especially if you love Stephen Chow.

October 14, 2011
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THE BLUE UMBRELLA blu-ray review

India Region-free blu-ray

1080p Widescreen 2.39:1

Hindi: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (original)

Tamil: Dolby Digital 5.1 (dub)

Subtitles: English

IMDB

 

MOVIE: 9

VIDEO QUALITY: 9

AUDIO QUALITY: 9

ENGLISH SUBTITLES: 8.5

EXTRAS: 0

 

The Blue Umbrella is an excellent film. Period. Even though there are three songs in this film, I wouldn’t classify this film as a Bollywood film. It’s just a great film from India. The movie centers on two characters, played by a little girl and an elder man, both mesmerized by a Japanese umbrella that found its way into their mountain town. The movie is totally touching as it explores greed, generosity, jealousy, vengeance, and redemption. This film can be enjoyed by everyone and it’s not a “family” film. It’s just a great film. The Blue Umbrella is also very similar to The Gods Must Be Crazy, only that instead of a Coke bottle causing a fuss, it’s this blue umbrella. The direction by Vishal Bhardwaj is first rate – his shots are beautifully filmed and the whole movie moves along at a very nice pace. The young girl and elder man are also excellent in this film. Great, great film!

The Moserbaer Region Free blu-ray is just totally solid. The video quality for the majority of the time is excellent. There are many artistically filmed dark shots, which may be less in video quality, but overall, the video on this blu-ray is just totally pleasing! The DTS-HD Hindi is also very good, with very active surround sounds. The English subtitles are pretty good as well, some spelling and grammar mistakes but nothing that bad nor distracting. The only extras on this blu-ray is the Song Menu.

Also, there aren’t any advertisements or logos that pop up during the film. Just a great solid blu-ray! Moserbaer does a dramatically better job on their blu-rays than on their DVDs!

The Blue Umbrella is one of the best Indian films I’ve seen and I highly recommend blind-buying this film!

October 14, 2011
Categories: B . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: Leave a comment

WHEALS ON MEALS blu-ray review

Hong Kong Region A blu-ray

1080p Widescreen 1.85:1

Cantonese: Dolby TrueHD 7.1

Subtitles: English, Mandarin

IMDB

MOVIE: 8

VIDEO QUALITY: 8

AUDIO QUALITY: 8

ENGLISH SUBTITLES: 9

EXTRAS: 3

 

The most interesting positive aspect about Wheels On Meals is that it’s very similar to the style of a typical French comedy film from the early 1980s starring the likes of Gerard Depardieu, Christian Clavier, or Pierre Richard – but one of the fair ones, not great ones. But other than that, Wheels On Meals is no classic. It’s just a good, not great, film starring the talented Chan, Biao, and Hung. I like that it’s got the pace and style of a European comedy from the 80s, but I would have preferred that the action be spread out evenly during the film instead of saving most of the action towards the end. Eventhough the film is generally entertaining, the majority of the film sort of drags till it reaches its action-packed finale. I was hoping that the comedy element would tide me over till the climax but even the usually funny Chan and Hung are pretty tame in this film. I probably laughed out loud three times during the whole film. Im not saying that the rest of the comic elements were not funny, I just thought it was pretty tame from what one would usually expect from a funny Chan or Hung film. The final action scenes are pretty amazing but I just was sort of tired by the time I got to that point. Another cool aspect about the film was that it was filmed in Spain. My favorite old Hong Kong films are the ones that take place in exotic countries, so it was nice to see the streets of Spain. Another big plus was casting the Spanish Lola Forner, who is as hot as a Bond girl. If the comedy doesnt grab your attention, then Forner will!

I really liked this blu-ray though considering Fortune Star’s past blu-rays of old films. It was generally just a positive experience watching this film because the video was totally clean and colorful. I wasn’t distracted by anything negative – positive video quality, non problematic audio, and here comes the big plus – almost perfect English subtitles! I don’t know how the previous dvd was, but if you dont have the dvd, this blu-ray is just a great way of enjoying this film regardless if it looks like an upconverted dvd or real HD. I’m a bit stricter grading Fortune Star blu-rays nowadays, but if I wasnt that strict, I would have given the video a 4 out of a 5. Of all the 1:85.1 Fortune Star blu-rays, I’m most impressed with the video on this one. The audio is like a 1.1 Dts-HD soundtrack with the subwoofer really kicking in with the big punches.  The extras include a Sammo Hung interview (in English), a Yuen Biao interview (in Cantonese without subtitles) and a trailer.

Wheels on Meals is a solid entertainer with a very pleasing blu-ray. I would recommend only to fans of Chan, Hung, and Biao and fans of movies filmed in Europe!

October 14, 2011
Categories: W . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: Leave a comment

SOLOMON KANE blu-ray review

UK Region B blu-ray

1080p Widescreen 2.35:1

English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1

IMDB

MOVIE: 8.5

VIDEO QUALITY: 9

AUDIO QUALITY: 9.5

EXTRAS: 8

 

This movie is awesome! One of the best action films of 2010! I first bought the dvd, and then I was so satisfied with the movie that I decided to upgrade to this UK blu-ray. It’s definitely Region B. I had to switch regions on my multi-region blu-ray player.

Solomon Kane is like an old-school hard R-rated film. There are some seriously messed-up deaths in this film! The filmmaking was sort of like a cross between Ridley Scott, Peter Jackson, and Guillermo Del Toro. And i’m going to be looking out for James Purefoy now – he’s sort of a cross between Gerard Butler and David Wenham. He seriously kicks ass as an action-hero leading man!

It’s too bad that Marvel couldn’t buy the rights to this film and just slap their production label on this film. If this was a Marvel film, it would have been one of the best Marvel comic book-to-film adaptations.

The video quality is excellent – the 2.35:1 aspect ratio looks really nice, much better than the DVD. I would like to note that the aspect ratio is incorrect on the back of this blu-ray. It says 1.85:1 on the back which is not true. The DTS-HD audio is pretty damn amazing as well. I felt like I was listening to a Lord of the Rings movie. And the extras are pretty generous as well: an intro by the director talking about how good the film looks on blu-ray, 2 commentaries, some making of featurettes, a great deleted scene which was unfortunately cut from the film (it’s an action scene of Solomon taking out a whole group of bad guys in a cave, which is in widescreen HD as well), a trailer, and some art images. This is a very generous blu-ray package and a fantasy film that is totally worth buying!

October 13, 2011
Categories: S . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: Leave a comment

PERHAPS LOVE dvd review

Hong Kong Region 3 NTSC dvd

Anamorphic Widescreen 1.78:1

Mandarin DTS 5.1 and DD 5.1

Subtitles: English

IMDB

MOVIE: 6

VIDEO QUALITY: 9

AUDIO QUALITY: 9

ENGLISH SUBTITLES: 8.5

EXTRAS: 6

 

Wow, Christopher Doyle has done it again. Every scene of his cinematography of PERHAPS LOVE can be cut up into photos and posted in a gallery. Excellent job! Christopher Doyle may not be a total magician though. Although he tried, he couldn’t save the movie from being good. All he could do was make PERHAPS LOVE into a fair movie. But that’s not his responsiblity. He has turned a piece of poo into a shiny gold-covered, sugar-coated turd. Unfortunately, PERHAPS LOVE is still a piece of crap and all the superb cinematography and its professionally-made look cannot disguise the stench of this movie. Speaking of Christopher Doyle, I realized while watching this movie that he has done the cinematography of the majority of Wong Kar Wai’s masterpieces, except for AS TEARS GO BY and the upcoming THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI. I’m not a fan of Wong Kar Wai, but his imagery in his films are nice – but that’s all thanks to Christopher Doyle. I wonder what would Wong Kar Wai be without Christopher Doyle. His films may not be the masterpieces without Doyle. I have a gut feeling that Doyle should be getting more credit for Wong Kar Wai films than Wong Kar Wai himself.

So with the massive help of Christopher Doyle, PERHAPS LOVE is a fair movie. I felt like I was watching a bad Alan Parker musical. Besides the amazing cinematography of this miserable musical, it had a dreamy feel to it that I liked. But once again, that’s all Christopher Doyle. The combination of the cinematography, sets, minimalism during many scenes, costumes all combined to give this film memorable imagery.

PERHAPS A STORY NEEDED, I mean, PERHAPS LOVE is not even a movie about love – all it shows is shallowness, mind games, hatred, and no chemistry between the lovers. If the main focus of the story is about love, then write about love! The writers of PERHAPS LOVE wrote good screenplays for PURPLE STORM and PEKING OPERA BLUES, but their teamwork together in this movie was awful. The poor writing screwed this movie up big time. I felt sort of bad for Jackie Cheung’s character, but the Takeshi and Xun characters had no love or chemistry when they were together in the past and none in the present (the movie jumps around from the past and present). The pseudo love displayed by the three main actors in this movie seemed to be written by a 15-year old boy. I’ve just about had it with that prepubescent writing style of relationships in Asian movies and anime movies.

There were a couple good scenes in the movie. Out of all the songs, which are mainly performed by the two male leads, there are about two rewatchable songs. Disappointingly, Farah Khan – one of the best Bollywood directors and best dance choreographers – did not get to show off her talents in this movie. The dancers in the movie were underused and overshadowed by the weepy, sad faces of the lead actors. I had a better musical fix in Jackie Chan’s THE MYTH. But even in the two decent songs, they are just okay – nothing spectacular. I love musicals, but PERHAPS LOVE was a pretty weak musical. It’s okay that the movie is dark and dreary, but you still have to have some uplifting spectacular musical scenes thrown in there.

The acting was okay. Everyone got to do some crying scenes. But they just didn’t fit in the film. You could tell that they prepared themselves to cry and they just shot it. I have no idea why any of the characters were even crying.

The Media Asia Region 3 NTSC DVD is good quality at least. There are two versions though – One version has one disc and the other version is has two discs with photos and maybe other trinkets added. So both DVDs are the same and have the same DVD content.
The anamorphic 1:85 video looked really nice and sharp. There were a couple white spots that flashed up, but overall it’s got such nice video quality that you can watch it even if the movie sucks. For audio, there is Mandarin DTS 96/24 and DD 5.1. Both sounded amazing. I don’t have a high-end home theater so the DTS 96/24 sounded as good as a normal DTS to my ears. The English subtitles were clear. I found only a couple grammar mistakes, but nothing that noticable. Included in the extras were a trailer, teaser, making-of featturettes, two music videos, and a boring Bollywood male dance scene in the rain. All extras did not have English subtitles.

There is also a Hong Kong region-free blu-ray available.

Overall, PERHAPS LOVE is just a dreary, emotionless half-assed musical. It’s not that bad, but it could have been a really good movie if the story was interesting and if there were some spectacular musical numbers. It’s only worth watching to see the genius of Christopher Doyle.

October 13, 2011
Categories: P . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: Leave a comment

JUMP blu-ray review

Hong Kong Region-free blu-ray

1080p Widescreen 1.85:1

Mandarin: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (original)

Cantonese: DTS 5.1 (dub)

Thai: DTS 5.1 (dub)

IMDB

MOVIE: 8

VIDEO QUALITY: 8

AUDIO QUALITY: 9.5

ENGLISH SUBTITLES: 10

EXTRAS: 9

 

I really enjoyed this film and I usually don’t like contemporary Hong Kong comedy films. Jump moves along at a great pace, has no filler, and is a totally entertaining popcorn flick. It’s a great rags to riches / dance film as well. If you really liked Strictly Ballroom, Step Up 3, Bring It On and other dance-type competition mainstream flicks, then you should enjoy Jump.

The main highlight of the film is Kitty Zhang. I think she believes in the Audrey Tautou school of acting, since she’s very Amelie-ish acting really funny and attractive at the same time. I look forward to her other upcoming films, since she seems like she has a wide range of acting skills.

The dance competition at the end of the film was very well choreographed with some quick editing but not to a point where it was annoying. This movie had no where the level of dance choreography of Step Up 3 (my “Matrix” of dance films), but it was impressive enough.

This Hong Kong All-Region Sony/Columbia blu-ray is good, but not great or excellent as should be expected. The video quality is slightly better than DVD quality. The video quality is a bit smudgy and soft, which is a bit disappointing for a new Hong Kong film but it’s not that distracting. For a high priced Hong Kong blu-ray, it should have received better video quality. But other than that, it’s overall solid with eye-popping colors. And there is no reason to buy the DVD instead because Kitty Zhang is a very attractive actress. Attractive actresses are required to be viewed on blu-ray. The DTS-HD Mandarin audio is really nice and active – no problems in that department. And thankfully, the English subtitles are perfect. No extras on this blu-ray.

This movie was surprisingly good after reading negative to mixed reviews of this film. It’s just a popcorn rags-to-riches dance film done perfectly. If you expect something more, then you’ll be disappointed. And I recommend this film if you want to see a really charming young Chinese actress, Kitty Zhang, do her thing and see why she’s the next up-and-coming actress in Hong Kong.

October 13, 2011
Categories: J . . Author: toddly6666 . Comments: Leave a comment

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