Watched on Tuesday April 15, 2025. 3ljl

Even better than I ed

Watched on Monday February 10, 2025.

Kun Chen (Rise of the Phoenixes) lives as an outcast with a bunch of CGI critters after being falsely accused of betraying his Ying-Yang brotherhood - until an opportunity arises to unmask the real culprit & defeat the demon beast. There's a lot packed into the run time - a love interest, side character story arcs & a lot of CGI action. None of it bad, but it's a time-sucking distraction from the main storyline. Everything feels rushed & I found it hard to care. Kun Chen has a great screen presence, but this script doesn't give him enough to work with.

Fantasy starring Mark Chao (Three Lives, Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossom) who goes to the Eternal City after his Yin-Yang master dies, to destroy a serpent demon contained in the body of his master's former love. He is assisted by an initially wary Deng Lun (Ashes of Love) who becomes his new "bestie". Offers better story & character development than the 2021 version. The action is more CGI-heavy than I care for, but it's watchable & doesn't come at the expense of story. Good cast. Very silly hats.

For satire to work, the audience needs to understand what is being satirised - in this case, societal expectations about dating & relationships. I didn't. Although I've been a member of society for some time now, these expectations seem to have gone over my head (I'm still not convinced they exist). Without this connection, the film comes across as a meaningless series of pedestrian atonal conversations, peppered with joyless sex & animal cruelty - not my sort of thing.

Visually superb.

Utterly delightful. Hoot-inducing comedy. Impressive technical wizardry. A masterpiece.

Great and important.

I can't say anything more. They might be watching.

Went from historical curiosity to my favourite Western in just 12 minutes.

Taiwanese gangster comedy gets off to a promising start & offers 'bad hair' fun. Vivian Sung shines as Fen, a salon hair washer who becomes the object of a gangster's affection. I would have liked it a lot, if not for the problematic dialogue (the way male characters talk about women & sex) being presented as comedy. The gangster boasting about his treatment of women has no consequences for his romance with 'Miss Shampoo', whose unquestioning attachment to him (after he disposes of her boyfriend) lacks credibility. Her story isn't told. Her consent is just written in.

Romantic comedy from Kuwait about two strangers who get married (each for reasons of their own) & go on honeymoon in Lebanon, where things quickly fall apart. I tend to avoid "romcoms". It pains me to witness the shallow remains of a once-great genre. Honeymoonish is a better than average example (although that's not saying much) thanks to engaging performances by the leads, points of cultural interest & the attractive (tourist) locations. My only issue was the wealth on display, which was too garishly opulent for my personal taste & unaccompanied by any sort of social commentary. But it doesn't pretend to be deep & I mostly enjoyed it.

After a shitty day & half a bottle of wine on an empty stomach, this was the uplifting source of joy I needed. NOT THE FILM. I haven't watched this trash in years and urge you to avoid it. I've just been reading the half-star reviews. I think this one is my favourite.

I'm tempted to keep going with the 1 star reviews but I've run out of wine and, honestly, I don't think I could relate to anyone who liked Shallow Hal that much.

Starts out as 'Gone With The Wind' transported from the American Civil War to the 1627 Qing invasion of Joseon. Ends somewhere quite different. Not perfect, but apart from the absence of Leslie Howard, I prefer it.

Sharks are cool. People, not so much.

Watched on Sunday October 27, 2024.

Love this cast. Bonus star for the unintended comedy value of the wigs.

Watched on Sunday June 30, 2024.

Watched on Friday September 13, 2024.

Best Zombie film. Would be 5 stars if they'd made it a comedy.

Lots to love aesthetically, from an appealing cast to gobsmacking Cuban & Korean locations. I would have preferred a stronger central story. It's fine to show love blossoming via attractive montages & locations, but this is the unconventional romance of an older woman & her much younger employee. Their developing relationship in a conservative society could have handled more substance & tension than the script offers. The political-business power struggle subplot is an unnecessary distraction. On the other hand... a refined Cha Hwa-yeon flips a chess table in the final episode - and I live for that shit.

This could have been a 5-Star comedy romance with its darkly funny original premise & terrific cast. Kim Soo-hyun & Kim Ji-won are great as the leads. It gets off to a fabulous start & buzzes along beautifully in the early episodes, before the (generic & highly-improbable) thriller sub-plot takes over, sucking much of the joy out of it. Having trawled through a depressing surfeit of TV thrillers & true crime to find such a promising comedy (a needle-haystack operation), this annoyed me. A lot.

This is a hot mess, but I lapped it up. Cha Hwa-yeon is a table flipping goddess.

This review may contain spoilers.

Two strangers conceive a baby after being drugged at a hotel. Under family pressure, they agree to a contract marriage. Their initially difficult relationship softens through a shared attachment to the unborn child they call "Doggypoop", who sadly dies in a miscarriage. After a long separation, the couple are reunited after a restaging of the hotel drugging incident by friends & family who think that might be a nice way to bring them back together.

Jang Hyuk gives a memorably unhinged (strangely endearing) performance as the male lead, bursting into laughter at inappropriate moments, presumably to remind us this is comedy.

A crazy storyline that defies credibility, with over the top villains, engaging leads & a good ing cast. It's a recipe for good fun, neatly contained in 16 episodes.

I dated a bloke in that share house & I reckon they tidied it up for the cameras.

I weep for the future!

12 men serving on a jury reveal their personalities & prejudices as they discuss a murder case, No action. No effects. Just good writing & performances.

Mostly fun adventure starring Cha Tae-hyun, who is endearing as always. I would have enjoyed it more without the ick (female characters overtly used as fantasy objects for the male characters). And the talents of Oh Na-ra & Lee Mun-shik are sadly wasted in minor roles.

Very silly. I watched it twice in a row without blinking & couldn't wipe the smile off my face. Sure, it's not Casablanca, but anything less than 5 stars would be ungrateful.

There's probably someone out there who thinks this is real history. And I think that's wonderful.

TV adaptation of an e-sports novel by Hu Dielan starring Yang Yang as a professional gamer who stages a secret comeback with a team of rookie underdogs. The stakes aren't high (unless you really care who wins at games) but it's light & amusing with some fun ing characters. Notably, the three female characters each have distinct characters & motivation, none of which involve love, jealousy or rivalry for the attractive male lead. Well done writers! I also liked the visual aesthetics of the game world & the interiors (filled with plants). Not perfect, but pleasant.

If academy awards appreciated comedy genius, Terry Crews would have swept the floor with this performance.

I love this film soooo much. Like... flames, flames on the side of my face.

"We all dream of writing our resignation letter every night."

Relatable.

Inconceivably charming

There was a splash of something special in the water at London's Ealing Studios around this time. The Lavender Hill Mob is one of several acclaimed comedies the studio made starring Alec Guinness. This is a crowd-pleasing crime caper that seems light - almost fluffy - compared to darker comedies The Ladykillers & Kind Hearts & Coronets. And it lacks the satirical punch of (my favourite) The Man in the White Suit. But it's terrific fun, beautifully filmed & performed - Stanley Holloway is particularly delightful.

My favourite Ealing comedy. A bleakly brilliant satire about a scientist (Alec Guinness) whose invention of a durable, stainless fabric is suppressed by industrialists because it threatens profits, with the of workers who only see the threat to jobs. It feels sharper, funnier, bleaker & more brilliant today, rewatching after Oppenheimer, in which an invention capable of destroying humanity is encouraged, funded & swiftly deployed. Also grimly topical if you consider the (deliberately) slow pace of sustainable energy.

Don't you understand what this means? Millions of people all over the world living lives of drudgery, fighting an endless losing battle against shabbiness & dirt. You've won that battle for them. You've set them free. The whole world's going to bless you.

Perfectly crafted, perfectly punk little story. The parents are hilarious.

Visually stunning. Musically delightful. I could watch this again & again if my heart didn't ache so much for Taeko (Michiyo Kogure). She's an unhappy wife in an arranged marriage to a good but emotionally distant man. Nothing she does provokes his attention, but draws plenty of criticism from friends & family (reflected in the reviews here also). Their marriage improves when she learns to understand & accept him for who he is. The story allows her redemption & their reunion is charming. But the image that stays with me is of Taeko, travelling alone by train. Understanding or empathy for her emotional needs remains elusive to the end.

I watched this after the gloriously Welsh 2014 BBC production of Dylan Thomas's play for voices Under Milk Wood. I was hoping the magic of Welsh voice would continue. It didn't.

How Green Was My Valley offers visual interest, but it's awfully hard on the ears. And unions. Presumably this is why the Academy loved it. But for the avoidance of doubt, I couldn't give a stuff who won an Oscar in this (or any other) year.

Unquestionably the most inventive crazy awesome dance sequence ever committed to film.

The problem isn't so much the film, which is only slightly below average. The problem is the gobsmacking waste of $200 million, spent mostly on three leads (none of whom give particularly good performances) & the writer/director (who could have spared a few dollars from his massive pay check to pay a better writer). When you consider what Netflix might have financed with this money, it feels like a kick in the face - to all the talent waiting for an opportunity. To writers of original stories. To anyone with a shred of creativity.

Rewatch ahead of the 2024 movie (recommended).

Rewatch ahead of the 2024 movie (recommended).

Rewatch ahead of the 2024 movie (recommended).

Rewatch ahead of the 2024 movie (recommended).

I love these guys!

Not perfect, but it has flashes of charm - and Madeline Kahn.

Jang Keun-Suk plays doppelgangers - a prosecutor & a con-man - who work together to bring down an evil bad guy (Jeong Woong-in) with the help of fellow prosecutor (Han Yeri). Crime, action & comedy are nicely blended, with a good ing cast. The story gets silly towards the end & draws out the conclusion a few episodes longer than needed. But the characters were well established by that point & I was happy to be strung along for few more hours of Jang Keun-Suk.

좋은

Ladies & Gentlemen, I will now defy death & good taste!

Watched on Wednesday June 5, 2024.