brainfertilizer

Power Rangers was originally a karate (gongfu/kungfu) based series. The actors were clearly drawn from either gymnasts or martial arts disciplines. Over time, however, they've depended less and less on martial arts and phyiscal stunt choreography more and more on special effects. This series looks like the next step in this wrong direction. Maybe things will get better, as it was only the first, introductory episode. But I don't have much hope, as they seem to be using actors with little or no martial arts skill at all. In fact, at least 3 of the actors seem to be dancers. That provides flexibility and body control to do some martial arts-like moves, I guess, but they don't seem to give them the chance. And the morphing sequence is ridiculously long. It takes nearly 30 seconds per Ranger. What are the bad guys gonna do while 2.5 minutes pass? Just sit there and play gin rummy?

Maybe it's a little early to know for sure, but it seems like the worst Power Rangers group ever.

Great movie. It changed my fiancée's life, gave her a goal in life that we will fulfill together: to move to an impoverished village and teach, hopefully helping reinforce the importance of education.

Teacher Xia comes from Beijing to help teach kids in an impoverished village. She is befriended by a local (Teacher Zhang) who had endeavored to teach the children earlier, but had run up against the limits of her own lack of education. There is a good amount of "City Mouse - Country Mouse" culture shock as Teacher Xia gets accustomed to life in a literally dry county. This movie shows the nobility and strength of human spirit when people are faced with nearly nothing. It celebrates the sacrifice of those who give of themselves to help, and reminds us that we all get more when we willingly give up material comfort for the benefit of someone else.

If you are a Chinese language student, the speech is pretty easy to understand, not much problem with the accent.

I hated this movie. It is quite possibly one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

Part of my problem with it is the clever ending. Part of my problem with it is the typical Hollywood sympathetic portrayal of the Saintly AIDS-stricken Homosexual Wise Man. Part of my problem with it is that I just don't like Wesley Snipes much as an actor; to me, the same arrogant personality is present in every movie I've seen him in. Part of it was some extremely cheesy dialog meant to establish his wife's character: Wesley: "But, Honey, the kids...." Ming-na: "F*** the kids, I'm coming!"

I found this movie slightly disappointing.

It seems there are several different strains of HK Action Flicks. Jackie Chan does pure fist/leg martial arts with no wires. Jet Li tends to use more wires, but "Once Upon a Time in China" seemed to be more dependent on the action than the wires. This move depends so much on wires and magic powers that you really don't get very much in the way of good swordplay and kung-fu. It seemed pretty cheesy from the beginning, and I left it on only because I had nothing better to do. Then it started getting good. The plot gets pretty complicated, as you see hidden motivations and conflicting desires causing problems for the characters. Unfortunately, the movie never really capitalizes on some of the things the characters discover, and the ending reveals a mystery they really hadn't set up well, forcing the characters to reveal too much in their dialogue, as in, "You see, this was my plan all along! Now I shall kill you!" Not dull, exactly, but it never fulfills the potential of the plot developments to overcome a cheesy approach to martial arts.

Excellent movie, in my opinion. I like Yuan Biao's kung-fu better than Jackie Chan's and the humor in this movie is excellent. Luckily, it seems to transfer into English well, so you can have fun even with just subtitles. The movie has enough dark moments (not child-safe) to remind you what the stakes are, the love interest between Yuan Biao and Maggie Cheung is touching and poignant, and the kung-fu action is excellent.

But it is important to remember that there are certain conventions in Honk Kong action flicks. It's also important to know which kind this is: mainly fist/leg action, with a little wire-work that doesn't detract from the excellent fight choreography. Heck, there's some decent sword-work in this one, too, which is a nice bonus in my opinion.

But "Hero" or "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or "Farewell My Concubine" it is not. Don't expect a deep movie that will change your life, and you won't be disappointed. Expect a decent kung-fu movie with humorous touches and serious issues and you'll probably be satisfied.

Immediately one of my favorite movies. Excellent action, great use of CGI, a few jarring "impossibilities", but overall an excellent action-thriller.

Here's the thing: I didn't know who Vicki Zhao was, so she didn't impress or disappoint me. I had seen Shu Qi in "Gorgeous" and didn't like her much in that, so she impressed me with her range of acting in this movie, to tell the truth. In fact, all three female leads were impressive in some of the thoughts and emotions they communicated in nothing more than a quirk of an eyebrow or a twitch of the lips. But I came away totally impressed with Karen Mok. I know her as a singer, and have always considered her a little arrogant or conceited. I don't consider her half as sexy as she seems to be generally considered. But I *liked* her character in this movie, and that must be largely attributed to her acting and scene presence.

I think they played up the "sexy" angle of the girls too much. They are all quite attractive, yes, but the attempts to take advantage of that sometimes distracted the movie...to me, inadvertent sexiness has far more impact than when it is shoved in your face. Still, an excellent movie. Well worth seeing.

...and for what it's worth, I liked the sound-mixing on the gunshots. Excellent heavy/punchy sound that really communicated what it might feel like to get shot.