Art of the Devil 3

A niche movie, part of the "Art of the Devil" franchise. Black magic, gory death which you won't imagine and some twist here and there. This 3rd instalment actually is a prequel to 2nd movie. Back track abit ...

A group of students played a trick on their sexy teacher, Panor. She in turned resort to KongTau to get back to them. Each died horrible death of the worst gore fest. A twist towards the end was that the student who brought them to this place actually was dead already.

So this 3rd movie tells how he got killed ... Another thing to note. The first art of the devil is only a prequel in name, has no connections in cast or story.

Anyway, it was quite disappointing. The gore, blood, bodies parts, pierce here and there, maggot infested living body, etc. But somehow something was missing, maybe the plot was too straightforward and restricted in telling what happened.

Panor who gain possessed of powerful KongTau power by having the 3-eyed God. She was kept inside a xiaolangkeng but was brought away by Ta's family. Ta was the student that was dead and led the rest of the students to death. Ta's ah gong and ah ma enlist the help of a anti-kongtau guy for help. What help ?

Panor and Ta's father had an affair, this made Ta's father poisoned his mother, Duen. So ah gong and ah ma want the anti-kongtau guy put Duen's soul into Panor's body.

Initially, seems like it worked but then if it worked, there will be no show liao.

So it didn't work long enough, Panor started to kill off the family one by one.

The whole kongtau kind of "texas chainsaw" style of slaughter came along in one continous scene. 6/10

The Dark Knight

At 155 mins, I thought it would either put me to zzzZZZzz or have draggy parts in it. Batman was never a superhero I like, probably because he doesn't have any superpowers and the stories are always so called "dark". This instalment was above expectation, really good.

And also a very much critically acclaimed performance by Heath Ledger as the Joker, I am not that kind that was too particular on how crap or how good he/she act. Coz if it can get onto the big screen, the standard would somehow be there.

Since as Joker, someone who you almost impossible to guess what he was thinking and what he wants, the latter because simply he doesn't want anything. A new DA, Harvey Dent was seen as the man who can be the hero of Gotham, putting all bad thugs behind bars. Together with police honcho Gordon and Battie, they form a quite invincible team, terrorizing the organization crime.

Then came along, Joker, he came along and rifled into the baddie gangs, offering his service to kill Battie. As the team tried to put the bad guy behind bars the right way, joker starts his killing rampage, killing the police commissoner, judge, he missed out on Harvey as Battie got him away just in time.

Joker wants Battie to reveal himself and surrendered to the police as part of this game. He told the whole world he will killed the mayor which he almost did, battie seemingly fighting a losing battle, wanted to do what the Joker wants but at the press conference, Harvey did that instead.

As Harvey was escorted along the way to the County, Joker came along but was caught by Battie, with Joker in jail, but even when he was caught, his plan was being carried out. He kidnapped Harvey and the love of both Harvey and Battie, locked away in 2 places. Revealing the wrong place to Battie, knowingly that he would definitely save his love.

Thought battie managed to save Harvey, but his face was badly burnt and he literally became 2-face. Losing this love was too much for him to handle and the Joker brought him to the bad side, playing mind and emotional games. 2-face knew that it was one of Gordon's man who drove his love away. He wanted revenge, kidnapping Gordon's family. While this happened, Joker played more of this games ... blewing up a hospital and forcing thousands of people being transported away onto 2 huge vessels.

He gave both groups of people on the vessels a chance to blew up each other first. A group of normal citizens and the other was full of criminals. But somehow, his plan failed, some form of 人之初 性本善 still existed. If one of the vessels would have blew up, it would have being a too dark ending for this movie.

Overall, very good. Good story, exihilarating action scenes, great acting but probably they need to get a much more pretty female lead. And also there are some parts where multiple scenes are shown rapidly in which the results of each are in sequence of each ... I liked that. 9/10

HellBoy 2 : The Golden Army

Caught the show on Saturday and this prompted me to watch HellBoy on Ch 5 on Sunday as I felt somehow the first one somehow was slightly better.

Can't remember when I watched movie on TV !!! After about 4 years, the red fiery hot temper monster who was brought up being good was back !

After his father's death, FBI agent Manning took care of the team but HB kept pissing him off by showing up in public. Then Agent Krauss came over and took control, a spirit who has psychic abilities and stay in some kind of suit.

HB and Liz was also having their BGR relationship problem, Liz also having HB's baby .... "Hell of a baby" ?

Anyway, this kind of movie need a baddie. Story goes ... Long long long long time ago, the Elf king created a Golden Army with the help of a golbin. It was some kind of clockwork army, 70x70 ... so 4900 of them, undestructible ... the one who was royal blood and has the don't know what crown control the army. The king regretted and split the crown into 3 part, 2 to elf and 1 to the human. His son buay song and went into exile.

But Prince buay song came back, he and his KK, troll storm an auction house and get the human part of the crown. He brought along thousand of "tooth fairies" which savagely ate up almost every human in the auction house. Then HB and team came along, had hell of a time dealing with this bunch of monstrous flying creatures ... Liz had to flame them all to death.

Then Prince BS, went to find his father and kill him off since obviously he won't give his son his part of the crown. But the last part was with his sister, Princess Nuala. She escaped and hid herself in some monster market under the brooklyn bridge. At there, she went to see some freak monster and it gave her a map that tells where the f*ck was the G army.

Krauss led HB and "fishman with a toilet seat around his neck" to the market, found her and got her back to their HQ. And HB also managed to kill off troll .... This pissed off Prince BS and he unleashed some gigantic creature, the forest god ... anyway, HB killed him off anyway. Back at the HQ, fishman and Nuala examined the map but couldn't find anything. Prince BS used his bond with her sis and found his way to the HQ, somehow wounded HB with his spear.

And found out that the map was useless, but the container that holds the map actually shows where the G army was. But her sis hid her piece of the crown, he kidnapped her and wanted fishman to come save her with the crown.

In the end, they ended up at some highland in Northen Ireland, saw the goblin, he led them in and some winged creature with so many eyes saved HB. Fishman found the crown back at the HQ, kept it and wanted to use it to save Nuala, because he fell in love with her. Prince BS got all the 3 pieces, wore it and the G army came alive ... HB and team couldn't deal with them so HB challenges BS to the crown ... and seemingly HB also considered royal blood ... so BS needs to fight him.

No prize in guessing who won. The numerous monster scenes are really good, no matter whether is fighting scene and just monster wondering around. Probably is the story, anyway, a very entertaining movie. 8/10

赤壁

We are being deem as "maximum profit can be squeezed out of us". We will watch this movie in 2 parts, latter being somewhere around in Dec. While in the US, they get to watch a single edited version.

Highly anticipated with its big cast, 梁朝伟, 金城武, 林志玲, etc and of course most expensive asian film to date. The movie adapted as closely as possible from the historical records of 三國志, is largely based on the battle between 曹操 and 孙权/刘备. But the main battle was between 曹操 who was a military genius and 诸葛亮, the greatest strategist and 周瑜, another military strategist.

The movie started off showing the poweress and ambition of 曹操, whom was a Prime Minister but actually was treating himself as an Emperor. He wanted to wipeout 刘备 and then takeover 孙权 to overall consolidate his position. 曹操's army outnumbered 刘备 astronomically and coupled with 刘备's benevolent character, whom he put his citizens at first, retreating the people to a safe place was top priority.

With the help of 五虎将 and 诸葛亮's 回光战术, managed to delay the enemy and allow the people to flee. Not sure if this 回光战术 tactic actually exists, basically it uses nature's force, the sun, in this situation which was reflected off the soldier's shining reflective shield, which the soldier laid in a long horizontal line to defend against the incoming attack. This somehow blinded whoever that approached.

Though they escaped, they need help, thus 诸葛亮 suggested that they need 孙权's help, something which was like best out of the worst. 诸葛亮 knew he only need to convince 周瑜 to allow both armies to collaborate, as 孙权's typical useless character probably will be too distracted by what those "Kia Si" senior minister's comments.

Not the movie also tried to inject some slapstick humour here and there, somehow it did paid off.

And of course, the very much talk about 林志玲's character, which was her first big-screen effort.

Also the 床上戏 she had with 周瑜 aka 梁朝伟, WHICH WAS EITHER CUT OR CAN ONLY BE SEEN IN THE 2nd MOVIE !!!

Like the way she was bandaging 周瑜 when he was wounded by an arrow during the 八卦阵

battle, slow motion with some crap erotic music at the back, felt like watching some C-grade
二级片. Then she start mentioning how she can help by providing first-aid in his army, KAOZ THEN CONFIRM LOSING BATTLE, NO PRIZE IN GUESSING WHY EVERY GOD DAMN SOLDIER WANT TO GET INJURED THEN !!!!

The other battle scene in this first part was the 八卦阵, how 周瑜, 诸葛亮 and the 五虎将 defeated 曹操's infantry troops. Very elaborated scene, showing the the tactical formation and the power of the characters.

The last 20 mins of the movie was simply just there to trying to bridge to the 2nd part which typically people might already forget what happen in the first part when it get shown in Dec. 8/10

七月八日, 星期二

当爱无形中变成了依赖

不再需要浪漫的安排

我们都在这圈圈中徘徊

像在等待句号划下来

当我给的体贴变成不该

没有甜言蜜语的灌溉

我们都在淡淡中找精彩

还是就让它慢慢不再

兴趣与能力

Imagine ..........

If you are given a chance to work in an area of your interest or in an area where your competency is, which one will you choose ? It seems a easy choice initially ... If I can wake up to really want to do my job and relishing every minute of it ... why not ? It will be a dream come true .....

But ... but

Usually, one is not at your most competent in your area of interest. Of course, there are exceptions. Or maybe you didn't take that chance to really go into that area of interest, thus giving one more time to increase the competency level. It may sound difficult to really conceptualize and verify ... but if you really think about it, could be true to a certain level.
Actually, if you are really interested in doing something, you will really want to do it really well, quite true in a certain way.

Then if you are doing something in your area of competency, something in which you do really well or well or at least you feel you are adequate to it. Or it could be that you have been doing it often and this becomes a skill. And human are like that, most people shy away from something in which they do not do well ... or maybe that is why people are resistance to change. But if it is a change to their area of interest ... then maybe the push factor will be there.

Well it is plain "SaMing" logic, who in the world likes to take exams ? But then most people try real hard to at least pass it .. But some are really good in passing it with flying colours so they are competent in it, indirectly they do not hate exams.

But all these could be just plain TCSS if other factors do not come into the picture, like do you really know what you really want to do ? And of course your this area of interest, is it able to sustain your standard of living ? or maybe more important, support from your families or love ones, etc

And also when do you know you really want to do this ? Does it change everytime like people say 三分种热度 ? If you know it early, the chances of you trying to make your interest as the main mean that pays you $$$$ becomes much more possible.

Not sure if Ronaldo really likes to play soccer, or simply he is just really competent in it.

七月六日, 星期日

I resumed my running routine, ran 3 times ! On tuesday, thursday and today, and this week was supposedly slightly more busy at work. Hope my back don't give any more problem, momentum is quite crucial to keep this kind of routine going on a regular basis.

It is summer blockbuster period and was on 7th straight movie weekend. Hancock was on the cards but haiz ... work came in the way. Paid but couldn't watch it, first time such thing happened. Next week will be 赤壁 ....

Went to Changi Village for brunch on Saturday with parents and bro. At 11+, getting seats not really a problem. The nasi lemak stall as usual already had 10 over people queuing up. Anyway, didn't get that, the ipoh chicken chop horfun was a very good 2nd choice, with the damn crispy fried dumplings. And actually the $3 bak chor mee was also good, alot of ingredients. At the centre lorong, a stall selling pancake, the pandan green bean not bad, $0.70.

I got 2 pint of Haagen Daaz's Dark Chocolate Orange and Apricot from Tampines mall :)
$9.50 each with a $10 voucher !

Saturday night was spend watching 第十九台湾金曲奖, "live" on Ch 56. Tanya, 蔡健雅 was the big winner, took away the 最佳制作人 and 最佳演绎女歌手. Her songs has always been very good, soothing to the ear, 当你离开的时候, 达尔文, 空白格 from this winning album are my favourites.

Somehow was tired, dozed off while watching 我猜. Woke up at noon and took a nap at 4. In between zzZZzzzz was spend watching 法证先锋2 and sweating it out with a good run.

Another week coming up. Expectation ? Is it really about expectation ? Managing and aligning expectation. And priorities comes into the picture too, Probably :)