Movie Review 21: Watchmen

Title: Watchmen

Director: Zack Synder

Running time: 2 hours 43 minutes

Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Action, Thriller

Boy, oh boy... this is an extremely long movie. If you're watching it in a cinema, be prepared to suffer from cramped legs and maybe a visit to the loo. I'll tell you when is the best time to visit the loo during the movie :P. This movie is even longer than "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" which is really long already... but the main question is, will you feel that it is a dragged out movie or is it so exciting that you'll even forget that it's an almost 3 hours movie? And oh, by the way, the Director's cut, which I believe is the version that will be out in Blu-Ray, has a duration of 3 hours and 11 minutes! And oh, this movie is based on a comic book with the same title which was published in 1986 and 1987.

Well, I am happy to announce that it doesn't really feel that long... except for your bladder. The story is quite engaging and it's not your typical hero movie. Basically, the movie is about a retired hero/vigilante who was brutally murdered and his "co-workers" tried to find the murderer only to uncover a more sinister plot.

Notice how I used the word vigilante? This is because these "heroes" doesn't really have any super powers... although I still have no idea how the patterns on the mask of one of them,  the Rorshach (Jackie Earle Haley) changes all the time. The others of the Watchmen group are the Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) and Ozymandias (Matthew Goode). With the exception of Dr. Manhattan, none of them have super powers... although Nite Owl II is more like Batman, with his technology advanced devices and Ozymandias is supposedly to be so fast that he can catch a bullet... but definitely not Superman fast.

Anyway, the story itself might be a little bit confusing in the beginning and it is imperative that you pay attention to the opening of the movie because it basically summarizes the event in between the time of vigilantes and the time where vigilantes are outlawed. Also, some of the characters mentioned have a predecessor and thus, you might mistaken one for the other. For example, there are 2 Nite Owls and 2 Silk Spectres... one elder and one younger.

Although Rorshach is one of the more "Wolverine" attitude type character, he would not really receive the popularity gained by Wolverine cause when he was unmasked, you would be just so disappointed.

Anyway, the main difference of this movie from other superheroes movies is that this movie is brutal and cold. There'll be lots of gore and blood and these 'heroes' does not exhibit what a normal definition of hero is... just remember, that they are better suited to be called as vigilantes instead of heroes.

The story is really nice and refreshing, although it could have used a little bit more action. However, one thing that I did not like much is the all powerful Dr. Manhattan. When you have someone as powerful as him, there really is no point in being a villain. He is even more powerful than Superman, practically indestructible and don't have Superman's kryptonite weakness. I think he is too powerful to be introduced in the 'hero' side.

However, this is still a recommended movie that all should watch... if you're interested in this genre of course... keep an open mind and you'll enjoy it.

Suggestion: Visit the loo when Silk Spectre II and Nite Owl II are having 'intimate' moments.

Bottomline: Good, engaging movie.

Bamboo Rating: 3.8 / 5.0

Credit Card Cancellation

Wow, I had one of the most pleasing service encounter with phone banking today! I figured that it is just stupid to pay RM2 everytime I pay my Citibank credit card charges every month, so I decided to cancel the card... although I really love their Evergreen point reward system.

Anyway, I phoned them and ask for credit card cancellation. The person on the other line did the normal stuff by confirming my identity by asking some questions. And then, inevitably, she offered to not charge me annual fees for the card, which by the way, is a whooping RM195! Yup, they sort of force me to change my Clear card to a Gold card and so, my annual card fees are RM195! Who the heck would want to pay that? Sure, I could have made a call and they are supposed to waive that, but why the hassle... why not just get one that is free for life in the first place?

Anyway, back to the topic, I steadfastly refused to accept the fee waiver in order to continue to use my card. Besides, as I said, it was really the RM2 Giro fees that puts me off. And of course I did not say that or she'll launch into a tirade of counters and reasons. But I was really itching to tell her another reason I wanted to cancel the card. It was something that happened two years ago (yes, once someone slighted me, I'll remember it forever!). I was purchasing something which was above my card credit limit (and by the way, they gave me a really low credit limit). I had to use Citibank card because it was the only card that I have that allowed me to pay the product in 0% interest installments. So, I phoned them and asked for a temporary limit increase and was rejected... which would not have made me angry if that guy did not give me the reason for doing so.

He actually said that he rejected my application because my account was not good! That **********!!!!! I'm like Monica (from Friends) in some way. I pay the credit card charges immediately when I receive the bills every month and I pay in full! And since I changed my statement to E-statement, it meant that I pay it every month immediately the statement is available online! And he has the balls to say that my account is bad!!!

Well, one of my friend theorize that their definition of 'good account' is for someone who uses a lot and pay the minimum only every month so that they can suck your blood through the interest rates. Well, if that's so, I'd rather be a 'bad account' customer.

Phew, it's good to get that off my chest since I did not tell that to that gal. And surprisingly those were the only attempt that she made to convince me to stay back as a customer. I guess I really am a customer with 'bad account' afterall huh? :P

And when I check my credit card account online shortly afterwards, it was already cancelled! Talk about efficiency... there's where one should benchmark it!

Movie Review 20: STreet Fighter - The Legend of Chun Li

Title: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak

Running Time: 1 hour 37 minutes

Genre: Action, Thriller

You know, it's strange that whenever I told someone that I'm going to watch this movie, they would roll their eyes heavenward and sigh. It's as if they are saying that I'm just like any typical guy who's watching this movie just for boobs and pretty gals.

First of all, this movie is NOT a typical Chun-Li movie with those tight ass cheongsam, super short skirt and super big boobs. Sure, there are people in the movie who has the same name as the ones in Street Fighter game, but as the director himself said, it would be just ridiculous to have a have half naked claw wielding Vega posing as an assassin.

Okay, so the summary of this movie is that Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk) is a half Asian half Caucasian female pianist who is on the hunt for her father's murderers. The main villain is M.Bison (Neal McDonough), but don't expect a red uniformed commander who can spin with dark energies surrounding him! :P

However, despite my arguments above, this movie is still a total failure. There were lesser than 20 people in the cinema! Initially, I thought this would just be some flesh to flesh punching and kicking type of movie, however when the director introduced the "qi gong ball" it pretty much killed the rest of the movie.

That and the fact that the villains of the movie are defeated just too easily. The fighting scenes are extremely short and before you got worked up with the fighting, it's all over. The same thing happened even at the final battle. M.Bison was initially shown to be a super powerful attacker, but in the end, he just suddenly lost to Chun-Li. And all those "transferring conscience into the baby" crap is just too ridiculous.

Kristin Kreuk is able to pull off as a strong kick-ass daughter with stunning effect. Sure, she doesn't really look like the original Chun-Li but damn, she can fight. I initially did not like her very much in the first season of Smallville (as Lana Lang), but ever since the episode where she was portrayed as a vessel for a witch, it was when I was showed her acting prowess. She can be weak, strong, evil and good at the same time! However, she has been constantly acting in B-Grade movies like Legend of Earthsea... and you can't really like a character too much in a sloppy film.

Neal McDonough as M.Bison is okay I supposed, since he does exudes a certain evil with his super fake smile. However what I don't understand is if he had "transfer ed his conscience" into his daughter, why does he keep his daughter alive? And what does it mean that his daughter is his weakness? If he is purely evil, he won't give a damn what happened to his daughter... afterall, he did kill his wife in cold blood.

And the other Street Fighter character, Charlie (Chris Ken) did not manage to get a fighting scene at all! The lines were inappropriate at times too... and the jokes are what we Cantonese called "cold jokes"... meaning after you heard the joke, your respond would be "duh". :P

Basically, it's just a promotion movie for the Street Fighter 4 game that is introduced recently to the consoles to get gamers worked up and buy that game. However, I would say that this film failed to do just that.

Observation: How on Earth did Gen (Chun-Li's teacher) failed to even touch M.Bison while Chun-Li managed to kick the crap out of him really confuse me.

Bottomline: Terrible movie

Bamboo Ranking: 2.0 / 5.0

Valentine's Stanza

(Picture taken from www.yellownet.com)

Note: The following poem/stanza/masterpiece depicting Valentine is not 100% correct as there were a lot of legends surrounding the true meaning of this day. This composition is meant for enjoyment only (well, for my part anyway :P))

Valentine's Stanza

The legend of Valentine shall I sing,
Under the merriment of Cupid’s sling;
Back to 1493 we make our way;
To discover the history of Valentine’s Day.

A normal priest was our saint,
Who blessed couples heaven made,
Day and night he performed his rites;
In hope of matching couples right.

An age of war was that time,
And King Gladius was insane;
Unmarried soldiers make them strong;
He could have never been more wrong.

Our priest continued his duty,
Tying knots and blessing many;
Soon the King heard of the priest;
Who deemed the King’s law not a must.

Mighty was the anger of the King,
Immediately he was brought to the King;
Cowered in fear he did not;
His defiance did not stop.

Into the dungeon Valentine went,
In there his first love was met;
And he sent his first Valentine;
Signed ‘from your Valentine’.

Valentine was beaten where it hurt,
Then to death he was put;
However he was made a saint;
And we now call him Valentine the saint.

Centuries passed and his name yet lived,
Though the truth many would not have believed,
People pay respects by celebrating love;
On the fourteenth day of the second moon.

Here endeth the history of Valentine,
Remember it for all the time;
Remember that love conquers all,
Happy Valentine to you all

(Note to self: OMG, I'm so freakishly talented :P)

Movie Review 19: Inkheart

Title: Inkheart

Director: Iain Softley

Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes

Genre: Fantasy

Basically, this film is about Mortimer "Mo" Folchart (Brendan Fraser)and his daughter Meggie (Eliza Bennett) who possess the ability to read characters out of a book when read aloud and are known as "Silvertongue". Mo, unknown of his powers, read a storybook, Inkheart to his daughter when she was still a baby and loads of nasty characters came to life. However, as the saying goes, "what comes out must go in" :P, in exchange, Mo's wife Resa (Sienna Guillory) was absorbed into the story.

Mo and his daughter escaped with the help of another character of the storybook, Dustfinger (Paul Bettany) and has since tried to locate another copy of the storybook to release his wife from her imprisonment.

I must say that I had expected a movie to be on par with Stardust. However, it fell short of my expectations. The storyline, though quite original, is unable to draw me into the fantasy world. I rarely criticize a movie for the loopholes in their storyline, but this one is just a little bit too much. First, the story that Mo read is somehow does not coincide with what that came out. For example, when Mo read "the Wizard of Oz", only the twister came out but not Dorothy even though it was mentioned a few times. It seemed as though Mo can read a lot of characters in the storybook but can control who/what that comes out, which is not true.

However, IT IS a fantasy movie afterall, and I love anyhting that even borders on the fantasy genre. There were a few funny moments I guess, but either the writer did not attempt much to include much comedy or I didn't catch it since they are low in both quantity and quality.

Mo's daughter, Meggie reaction in knowing the truth about her mother's disappearance didn't make sense either. She was crying/ranting/raving that her father did not know whether her mother is alive or not... I mean, duh, does that mean that he should not attempt to save her mother?

Also, I am unsure why authors for almost every novels would want to portray the absurdity of the lengths that one can go in order to save their loved ones. Here's the scenario. Evil guy want Meggie to do something which will basically kill lots and lots of people. If Meggie doesn't do it, her mother will die. There are basically only two outcomes with this type of scenario if Meggie did what was told.

Outcome 1: Meggie did what was told and thousands of people die. Meggie's mother was saved but learned the truth and became devastated that her life was in exchange of thousands of innocent lives. Meggie also had a recurring nightmare of innocent people blaming her for their deaths.

Outcome 2: Meggie did what was told and thousands of people die, including her mother.

I cannot see a third outcome at all loh. Why on Earth would people still do all these stupid things without thinking about the outcome? And to make matters worse, the evil guy did mention that Meggie's mother would be sacrificed once Meggie did what she was told to do. So basically, her mother would either die early or die later. What kind of a deal was that?

Of course, even though it seemed that I mentioned only the negative stuff, it was not a too bad movie afterall... because Brendan is in the movie mah :P

Observation: Since they don't really need the real storybook to change the storyline, why on Earth did they not do that earlier and have to wait until the last possible moment to do so?

Bottomline: Well, at least it's better than "Bridge to Terabithia" :P

Bamboo Rating: 3.0 / 5.0

Movie Review 18: Red Cliff 2: More Brains less Muscles

Title: Red Cliff (part 2)

Director: John Woo

Running Time: 2 hours 11 minutes

Genre: Action, Drama

Finally, the second part of Red Cliff came out. After my disappointment in the part 1 of the movie, I wasn't expecting much. While the part 1 of the movie had more individual fighting, the second part of the movie focus more on strategies and group battle.

This second and final part of the Red Cliff movie is about how Zhou Yu (Tony Leung), Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), Sun Quan (Chang Chen), Liu Bei (You Yong), Guan Yu (Ba Sen Zha Bu), Zhang Fei (Zang Jinsheng) and Zhao Yun (Hu Jun) work together to fight off the vast army of Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi).

Basically, this movie focus more on Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang while the others have taken a backseat in the fighting of Cao Cao's army. Here you can see the famous plan of how Zhuge Liang "borrowed" more than a hundred thousand arrows from Cao Cao. Also, you will also see the fiery display of ship burning (foh siu lin wan suen)... translated from Cantonese meaning "the burning of multiple ships"... although I doubt that those are really the methods used to burn Cao Cao's ship in the olden days (eg. usage of flaming ramming ships and kamikaze bombing men)

Basically, I think that this second part of the movie contained more substance than the first part. However, it still has the irritating repetitive scenes when there is something brilliant to be shown. What I meant was, for example, during the first part of the movie, when the defending army used the sunlight reflected off their shields against the enemy, the director repeated that scene so many times that I was wondering if the film was caught in a loop or something :P. The same thing happened in the second part too... it's as if the director is trying to lengthen the movie by repeating these things... or maybe because there were so little brilliant scenes that he had to focus on these rare few :P.

Anyway, once again, you must be reminded that this movie is just loosely based on the history. Basically, Zhou Yu did not let Cao Cao go when he defeated Cao Cao's army. I mean, how stupid would one have to be to let such a powerful enemy go? It basically meant that Zhou Yu is responsible for the deaths of the people Cao Cao will kill in the future! It's like, hello... you won, he lost... so kill him already! I don't see him halting when he hacked his way through the army... I think he just want to show off to his wife :P. In truth (I meant what that was recorded in history books), Cao Cao escaped before his army was fully defeated and managed to return to his country even though there were numerous ambushes along the way... yup, I'm a Cao Cao supporter... so what, sue me :P. He lost a battle but he won the war!

And oh, I actually felt sorry for Zhao Wei when her temporarily short-lived boyfriends was killed... though you would have to be an idiot if you did not predict that the first time they met :P.

So, in conclusion, this second part is acceptable to be watched but unfortunately, you will need to watch the first part before watching the second part to understand the movie.

Observation: I had no idea what the poem recited by Cao Cao meant except for the last sentence :P.

Bottomline: Better than the first. Watchable.

Bamboo Rating: 3.0 / 5.0

Yik Ting's Wedding in Malacca

My ex-classmate Yik Ting had a wedding dinner on 28th December 2008 in Malacca. Coincidentally, I was having a long holiday during the Christmas and thus I only need to drive from Perak to Malacca... and that itself took me 4 hours plus to reach.

Anyway, the gals, Rainbow, Cat and LK were in Kampar as well and they wanted to be with the bride in the morning when the bridegroom whisk her off to his house. So, I had to take the gals to Malacca at 3am in the morning! I had never drove for two states before and I was unsure if I am able to keep awake the whole time. I sometimes even feel sleepy when driving back from Penang to Kampar!

Luckily, the gals kept me occupied (for three quarters of the road anyway :P) and so, we were able to reach Malacca in one piece. Following are the photos taken on 28th December 2008 from 7am onwards.

The gals putting on their make-up before presenting themselves at the bride's house.

The gals, after their make-up... sorry, I am unable to post the "before" pic since my life would definitely be in danger if I do so... :p


A cute baby who is captivated by my soothing presence :P

Girl power....

The bride, anxious awaiting her husband...

Arrival of the groom and his 'gang'

One of the multiple 'tests' the groom and his gang had to go through to get to the bride's room... strange that only the groom had to prove his love to the bride while it is deemed unnecessary for the other way around.

The final 'test'... a written test in which the groom had to tell the bride why he love her... I thought love is blind :P

The groom had to take off his coat due to the heat and pressure as the bride phoned him and complained that his answers were inadequate.

Finally, the bride and the groom are together...

The tea drinking ceremony...

Wedding car... it has 2 numbers only... cannot place bet lah... and I was hoping to claim my petrol through the punters :(

Well, since the bride's house is near Jonker Walk, we of course had the famous Chicken Rice Balls for lunch!... or was it breakfast?

The 'balls'... strange, it tasted better 3 years ago...

But I think that the best food to have in Malacca is not "Sate Celup" or "Chicken Rice Balls"... instead, it's the "Baba Cendol" that's the best... available only in Malacca... I love the original flavour... though some preferred the durian flavour... yucks...

The Cat giving a big munch on her lunch...

The groom (or was it the bride?) arranged accommodation for us... this is the room the gals are staying in... got air-cond, tv and bathroom... and oh, it's not a hotel... it's a terrace house that has multiple rooms like this one.

This is the souvenir we got at the wedding dinner.

The gals... looking fine even though lacked of sleep... the wonders of a skillfully applied make-up :P

The wedding cake... I never had the chance to taste it though...

The table where the bride and groom sits...

Mole-ron... long time no see... :P

Starters... spicy peanuts

The bride in her evening gown... or is it still considered as wedding gown?

Bride and groom walking through the front door... finally!!!

Mixed platter... not very nice... some of them are cold... and they are supposed to be hot...

Shark's fin...

Roasted piglet... a bane for the girls

Steamed fish...

The red wine that is served... don't know whether it is considered good or not... I wouldn't know one bitter taste from one another...

Groom: Ooops, sorry dear...

Bride: Never mind love, thanks for the new evening gown you'll be buying for me tomorrow :P

Drinking with crossed hands...

SM: Yummy!

PF: Yucks!

Cat: Burp!

Rainbow: My nails!

Prawns... definitely better than the one I had during CNY 2009!

Ginger herbal chicken... i think this is the first time I had this dish served in a wedding dinner... ah well, there's a first for everything...

Mushrooms, abalone and vege... no sea cucumber lah :(

The dessert... fried yam and mango pudding... I think :P

Anyway, congratulations YT and I wish you an exciting and happy marriage filled with love!