Movies

Christmas spirit (or rather, shopping spirit) is in the air!!!

Town is filled with endless queues of people doing their shopping amidst of the countless sales taking place; Mango, Isetan, TAngs and the blah...

Dear got an Adidas $50 voucher! HAPPY HAPPY!!! =)

The rest of the entry is devoted to movie reviews and afterthoughts; read the following warning:

Warning: Spoilers ahead! If you still wanna catch Narnia, King Kong or Perhaps. Love, then DO NOT READ!!!!

Thank goodness the movie distributors decided to release the BIG movies in Dec...

Part 1: The Chronicles of Narnia
My first movie experience in JB - City Square. It turned out to be a cineplex managed by Cathay; everything there is almost like Orchard Cineleisure. One complaint though (not abt the movie); i almost suffered from chronic chilling due to the "powerful" air-conditioning in the theatre.

The movie was not bad, for someone for hasn't read the series by C.S. Lewis, enough for me to be suspended from reality to believe in the story. The part where Aslan came back to life was rather well managed, not overly done; of course, I do not have the knowledge of the actual text to compare, so if the messages that the movie carries ain't strong, then there's always the original book to fall back on. Personally though, this is a show where the kids do not shine out as expected, probably because HP did a better job at it. Except for the youngest girl, the rest of the kids do not really seem to command as much authority and attention, if they are indeed the future kings and queens of Narnia. And even more puzzling for me as a novice as far as the Chronicles are concerned: why don't the rest appoint Aslan as the King in the first place? Anyone wanna enlighten me? =)

Part 2: King Kong
This 3 hour long blockbuster doesn't seem that long. Was quite disappointed towards the end because it ain't the way the hero should die. But I think the message is quite clear, that machines made by man are so ruthless and deadly. Also, the relationship between Kong and Ann wasn't really "settled" at the end; perhaps PJ wanna let Kong's and Ann's non-verbal expressions be interpreted by the audience, which leads to the next issue: who did Ann love more? My take is that Ann saw Kong as a fatherly/family figure, since she had been without family care since young; her "guardian" from the previous troupe had returned to his hometown before she had left for Skull Island. She saw a similarity that Kong shared with herself, alone in each's own brutal and vicious world, fighting to survive whenever the need arises. The scenes in which they were alone were hardly romantic; it was more like yearning for companionship. As for Kong, it wouldn't have been love as well. He probably admired Ann for her resilience and will to survive despite her helplessness in his world as well as hers, and decided to protect her. Jack Black's character claimed that it was Ann who ultimately made Kong lose its brutalness and its life; on the contrary I feel that Ann became a purpose for Kong to live, to protect her and keep her in his world. Ann did loved Jack Driscroll (Adrian Brody) at some point in time, but I wasn't sure if she was still loving him at the end of the show.

Overall, it was better than Narnia, because of a stronger plot and the PJ factor.

Part 3: Perhaps. Love
My Favourite in December so far. The beginning forecasted what the movie was going to be about. Goes along the line of "ppl wished that they are the main leads or co-leads of the lives of others, especially of those closest to them, but often they do not realise that it is not the case." For most of the show, Jian Dong (Takeshi Kaneshiro) tries to come back into Sun Na's (Zhou Xun) life, believing that she deliberately left him out of her memory in order to attain success in the world of acting, finally succeeding in doing a deja vu to her - making her fall in love with him again before leaving her, what she had done to him 10 years back. The main crux is when Nie Wen (Jacky Cheung) realised what had been played out before him in reel life was actually the love story of his lover (Sun) and his main lead (JD); he subsequently proceeded to re-script his role in the musical, thus making himself a victim and a matyr. In the end, JD realised that he ain't no longer the lead in Sun's life; his part had ended when she had left him 10 years ago. Sun also realised that JD was part of her past and the present lead in her life now is Nie.

What is debatable is whether Sun had been right to leave JD for his director friend in search of success and stardom. Here, the movie played to the stereotypical Mainland female who's willing to do anything for money and fame. On the other hand, JD's success as an actor could be indirectly attributed to Sun's leaving; both of them would not be at where they were if they remained together. To Sun, she saw it as a chance to climb out of oblivion, obscurity and poverty. Admittedly, she could have done it the hard way, but such decisions are admittedly hard to make, for she still loved JD. If not, why bother to pretend that JD had not existed in her life before? Ultimately, it is hard to judge her actions, for it will be hard to say what we ourselves would have done in her shoes in the first place.

Signing off.............. its Christmas Eve..............
RC