Naked Weapon / 赤裸特工

This movie is so much better than its "sequel", "Naked Soldier". It's not the best movie out there but at least it's thrilling with more realistic fighting scenes and better romance. Oh and the movie is conversed in English even though it's a Hong Kong movie :) So yay to not needing subs. And all the characters' English are pretty decent.

Starring Maggie Q as Charlene and Daniel Wu as Jack. Charlene was "kidnapped" by Madam M with 40 other young girls to be trained as assassins. Anyone who tries to escape gets killed. Charlene met Kat in the camp and they were best friends ever since.

The girls were taught to seduce and to kill by breaking one's spine with bare hands. The "graduation" was to let the girls fight each other and there will only be one winner. However, before Jing managed to kill Charlene, the Madam stopped the fight and announced three winners. But that was not the end. Their congratulatory dinner ended with them getting drugged and raped with the Madam saying "from now onwards, your body no longer belongs to you". (I cried during this scene cos it's so sad to see those girls being violated and are unable to do anything about it :()

Charlene and Jack were unfortunate to meet in such circumstances, one being a cop and one an assassin. However, that did not stop their affection for one another. At the end, Jack and Charlene went to the same temple to pray. Jack got to know that Charlene just left the temple and he ran out to try to find her.

Worth watching? Yes! I'd always love some Maggie Q action (and she's hot) haha!

Naked Soldier / 絕色武器

Okay, what the hell? This movie is just.... weird and meaningless. I thought it started out well with all the assassination and brain washing and stuff. But subsequently it just got more and more lame. Especially the fighting scenes. Every of the woman look like they're trying to seduce people more than having a tough want-to-fight face. No one ever gets hurt or cut during the fight, as if it's that easy to dodge people with knives and swords. Also, the fighting towards the end just go on forever... That it gets boring and some humour was intended but I was just like =\ cos it wasn't funny at all. People either get killed too easily or too damn hard to even get injured.

I thought the female lead, Jennifer Tse, was charming (looks) though. And she kind of resembles Maggie Q. She's actually the sister of Nicholas Tse and does look like him when she doesn't have lots of makeup on, just saying~

Forces Spéciales (Special Forces)

Second movie for the day, because I can muaha~ End of finals, start of holidays. Super happy and excited for my holidays but I know all good things come to an end eventually :(

I actually thought this show was "G.I. Joe" because of the chinese title "特种部队". I guess this French movie happened to have the same chinese title as the latter.

Apparently almost the whole film is in French, which I can't understand for nuts. So I had to rely on chinese subtitles. The film focuses more on the after-effect of rescuing this French journalist Elsa from Pakistan, where they were chased by the warlord Zaief's people and himself. The Special Forces' members died on by one during the "failed" rescue mission because they couldn't arrive at their destination due to Zaief's forces and ambush. As such, the team, along with Elsa, walked for days and days, across snow mountains and tough terrains, to get to their Afghanistan base.

Eventually, only Elsa managed to walk out of Pakistan alone but fainted due to exhaustion and got picked up by the military (I assume). She refuses to go home until she finds two of the members who survived alongside her but got injured and decided to complete their mission by not being a burden to Elsa and sending her to Afghanistan alone. And~ They managed to find them.

The film is able to gain one's attention span not because it's super exciting and interesting but because of what people would go through to survive and how they will give up just because it's tough. Their selflessness is also applaudable.

Amazing gun-shot scenes though. Loved the gun action. And I think the sniper was cute, because I have a thing for snipers, and because Raphaël Personnaz is just cute. Too bad he had to die hahaha.

Worth watching? If you're looking for a violent war-like bloody thriller, then you probably wouldn't like this. But I'd say it's worth a shot.

Floating City 浮城大亨

A Hong Kong movie set in British colonial times. The attempt to illustrate how change due to industrialisation can be seen but the scriptwriter could decide if she wants to go with the more heartfelt moments or the success of a used-to-be-fisherman in this British company. There was quite a bit of touch-and-go. Before you can empathize with the character, the focus of the movie is changed. And there isn't enough "hard work" for the character also. It seemed too easy for him to climb up to the C.E.O's (I assume) assistant, when he came from an illiterate (chinese) background up till his teenage years, to a literate and proficient English speaker.

The female characters are like... too insignificant. Both had a major impact on him nor his career. There was too much that wanted to be shown that it's just not complete enough.

On a side note, the CG is bad too. Aaron Kwok doesn't look like Caucasian nor mixed at all =\ I would say his performance in this movie is below expectations.

Oh and the story was based on a true story.

Worth watching? Nah.

True Blood Season 3, 4, 5, 6

Because I was too lazy to write a post for each of the seasons, I decided to combine them. Which actually beats its purpose because I'm gonna write about all of them anyway. Dumb dumb.

I've actually forgotten what S3 is about so let me go wiki it for a bit. hahaha. Okay I think this season was my least favourite so far. Because it's about lame Russell Edgington and some lame fairies thing about Sookie which they didn't even show or elaborate much. But I kinda like that little thrill about watching how Eric is gonna take down Russell alone. BUT I don't understand why they would want to let Russell live instead of kill him. I get it, the whole Godric thing, but if it's me I'd choose to make sure I end my enemies (yes, you can say cockroaches too) for good. It ended with Bill betraying Eric and pouring cement on him. And then Eric was well and alive after escaping from the cement. Now, I'd really like to know how he did it. Because HOW? Dug his way out of the cement? =\

And then again in S4, there was a bit of fairies drama when Sookie was brought there but that was it? Like the "leader" started the destruction and poof Sookie was back in Bon Temps, apparently a year has lapsed. Maybe they're gonna bring more fairy action in the future seasons but... I just thought it was a little lame, just like how Sookie said it, "I'm a fairy? that's fking lame" lolol. The rest of S4 was quite scary to me, with the witchcraft and chanting and sorts. =\

*I really don't know why I'm still watching it when I should be studying for my finals*

Season 5 was interesting yet boring because of all the politics stuff. But interesting because we see how small fries take over "The Authority" and overthrow it. Nice old Bill also turns evil because of Lilith and see how he has been blinded by this "God", belief and authority. And finally, Bill becomes Lilith himself. Oh no~

Season 6 just got more interesting because we've got crazy Bill thinking he's God, some crazy vampire coming for Sookie and the hell all the vampires except Bill got captured. So, of course if those vamps weren't rescued, there'll be no season 7. Bill decided to be a nice guy and sacrificed himself for the captured vamps (which I think is for the better cos I don't exactly like evil Bill though I like innocent Eric more :D). The season ended with Eric chilling naked at the peak of a snow mountain and blowing into flames, and nests of vamps infected with Hep-V arriving at Bon Temp for a feast.

Lazy me is lazy~

Captain Phillips

Caught this movie with the bf today. Was an impromptu decision. Watched (half of) the trailer seconds before we decided to get the tickets. Lol! And honestly I didn't know what I was sitting in for. I only know "captain phillips".

Overall, I would say that this movie is worth watching. A thriller keeping you on your toes till the end. However, there were definitely "he could have done this", "this is ridiculous" and "this is impossible"s but unless you're someone like me who pays attention to the unimportant (well, subjective) areas, you wouldn't really notice it.

I was expecting more crew and cabin action rather than 1 hour worth of point-your-gun-at-my-head.

Watching the US Navy and SEAL take out this bunch of pirates is interesting though, with all the commands and brains. Which made me wonder, would they really go all out for a ship captain? Maybe, maybe not.

The part that caught me was how Phillips never forgot his family. He was more concerned about his family (whether they knew of his predicament) than himself at that time. Especially the ending.

This movie is based on a book based on a true story. But like all based-on-true-story movies, they're exaggerated~