Showing posts with label Li Bingbing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Li Bingbing. Show all posts

Is The MEG Worth Watching?

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Hi Huneybees,


Going by its movie thrailer, it was inevitable that movie-goers, including myself, entering the cinema hall to catch The Meg (巨齿鲨) for the first time would have compared it with the iconic "Jaws" from 1975.


With the plot of The Meg centered around the attacks of shark, the rescue effects that followed, and the attempt to destroy it (pretty similar to the 1975 blockbuster), I was expecting the thrills to be equal if not better since the shark in this movie was the infamous prehistoric alpha hunter of  ocean - Megalodon - which was at least three times larger than that Great White movie directed by Steven Spielberg; but unfortunately the similes ended here and I was left feeling mixed instead.

As a disclaimer, I have no problem with Hollywood movies co-produced/funded by China companies, as in the case of The Meg was co-produced by Warner Bros from USA and Gravity Pictures from China, since it gave international exposure to Asian talents such as Li BingBing (李冰冰) and Winston Chao (赵文瑄).

Unfortunately, in this case, the scriptwriting for The Meg were plain awful! Clearly written for the China audience in view of their limited English,  I found the scripts for characters in The Meg were rather flat and at times, silly. Also, there were too many "dry" jokes, which I found was rather unnecessary for a thriller. The only two times the audience did laugh was the airing of Thai version of "Mickey" by Pim, during a scene switch to Thailand, as well as the dog named "Pippin" swimming for its life, which I found rather funny but at the same time irrelevant.


The on-screen romance between Suyin (played by Li BingBing) and Jonas Tylor (played by Jason Statham) reminded me of SPG - Sarong Party Girl - as Suyin fall for Jonas Tylor's half-naked but well toned body after he rescued her from the deep.

The power of love had certainly turned Jonas Tylor from a reluctant participant in the rescue mission to someone who became spontaneous in his heroic effects to save everyone, which I found was just unreal especially up against a 23-meter long ferocious shark.


While there no complaint about the acting skills of actors and actresses, it was Meiying, the daughter of Suyin (played by Sophia Cai), who stood out above the rest with her innocent but confident charisma on top of her distinctive Pan-Asian look (fyi: she was born to a Chinese mum and British dad) .

Lastly, the 3D animations in general were realistic but I were looking forward to more actions from the Megalodon through my 3D glass at IMAX but there were not many to wow me, I was waiting for that moment where I'm in the mouth of the beast...

All in all, The Meg is a movie I would give it a miss unless I'm a huge fan of either Li BingBing,  Jason Statham, or liken the idea of swimming near a Megalodon.



Have a Great Weekend, my Huneybees!



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[Movie Review] Transformers: Age Of Extinction

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Hi Huneybees,


AUTOBOTS TRANSFORM!


It's been 4 years after the Battle of Chicago and since then, an elite CIA unit named Cemetery Wind, headed by paranoid agent Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer) has been formed and been tasked with hunting down the remaining Decepticons. However, he secretly hunts down both Autobots and Decepticons with the help of a Transformer bounty hunter named Lockdown. 


Everyone has been staying away from Transformers and the story began as Optimus Prime is found and rebooted by a failed inventor named Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg). He rounds up the remaining Autobots and is off to stop Lockdown while also stopping a business tycoon Joshua Joyce from creating his own Transformers with a material called Transformium. And as the material is melted down from Megatron, the newly created Galvatron took on its own intelligence and started another battle.


Michael Bay seems to have lost his flow in this movie. The plot is all over the place, with the Dinobots appearing out of nowhere (and for such a short period!) and then suddenly in the 4th movie, there's talk of the creators of Transformers when for the past three movies stated that they were just created by the Allspark.

Photo credits: MTV
“They love to hate, and I don’t care; let them hate,” Bay said to MTV .
Photo Credits: tformers.com
Yeah, we can definitely see that to keep the movie going and sponsors pouring in is the main objective as well. There were too much product placement in the movie that it turned out to be a lengthy car commercial, more than being a movie. 


Together with the low angle shots where actors/robots are filmed upwards from ankle height to give them more of an iconic stature and the American flag constantly shown blowing in the breeze amid the turmoil (Viva la US) and slo-mo shot that showing near death stunts, involving a flying car making contact with a man's head is starting to become a signature of Bay's work, which can also mean kinda predictable...


Not to mention for those well traveled, you would notice that they messed up the bits of Hong Kong with China, like villagers living in the mountains and subway tracks above ground? And the most amusing part was how Asians were portrayed as kungfu masters! 

Li Bingbing stars as Su Yueming, owner of the Chinese factory used by KSI to build their artificial Transformers and when she and Joshua Joyce were on pursuit, she managed to fight them off with the excuse that she was trained with the police, but what about that guy in the elevator?

He just happened to be a passenger in the elevator and when he saw Li Bingbing under attack, he jumped right out and started fly kicking those bad guys. Hmmmm, if only I can do that! 


Well, the upside to watching the movie is most probably coz of Mark Wahlberg. (YES! Goodbye Shia Labeouf) They should have casted him for the Transformers movie right from the beginning, I mean check out those arms right? Wahlberg's star presence ensures that you can't help but root for this underdog character during his various death-defying scrapes.


And of course, not forgetting the Bay Bimbo where bodily curves are crucial with the tan body. First it was Megan Fox and now Nicola Peltz as Tessa Yeager, Cade's daughter. Blonde, plumped up lips with legs that never end together seemed to be the sterotype female casts in his movies.


Well, as disappointing as it is I would give the movie 1 out of 5 stars. =(
“Transformers: Age of Extinction” is now showing in cinemas islandwide.



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