The Kid From The Big Apple Review

Locally produced, internationally rewarded. 

The Kid From The Big Apple Review – When young meets old and East and West collides.

Bonding time! 

Sophia was raised by a single father who gets pregnant young and decides to move to New York and live with her boyfriend. For twelve (12) years she lives away from her father until one day due to work commitment in China, she had to leave her daughter under her father’s care who is a respected figure among the local community. The kid, Sarah is at first resentful of everything from moving to Malaysia to getting to know her grandfather to making new friends. She spends most of her time playing with her mobile phone while her ‘Kong Kong’ makes all the effort to make her stay comfortable. Soon Sarah begins to adapt to the new lifestyle while slowly making a deep connection with her Grandfather along with learning a thing or two about Chinese traditions. As time pass by, Sarah becomes attached to her Grandfather until on the day Chinese New Year when they receive awful news. Can this family get reunite or fate will present them with more challenge?  

Playtime! 

Bring some tissue or better still a tissue box when you enter cinema to catch this gem. It will tug your heart at all corner and in no time, you will find yourself wiping away your tears. Yes people, I cried too so you know this is no joke. Besides making you weep, it also make you smile thinking about the good old days when kids used to play outside and getting bruised instead of just planting their faces on latest gadget. There are appearances of latest technology (ipod and ipad) but in a form lesson how not to let it take over human emotions. The cast was brilliantly selected with the main kudos going to young Sarah but my personal favourite is Bao. Watch and you will know why. The storyline is very relevant in today’s world which will leave a lasting impact for both the younger and older generation.  

Malaysian pride 

With the school holiday around the corner and the movie winning its well- deserved accolades left right and centre, gather your family and even friends to watch this film. In the current fast paced world, the two (2) hours you spend to catch this cinematic wonder is worth every penny and time. 

P/s – It is a Local Chinese movie which might put off non-Chinese speaking community but the translation was done well so you don’t have to worry about not understanding the story. A definite must-watch and watch again movie in my book this one is. 

Kung Fu Panda 3 Review

Guess who is back! 

Kung Fu Panda 3 Review – Our favourite dragon warrior is back on the big screen once again.

Po and Li reunited! 

Serenity at the Valley of Peace is disturbed as just Po (voiced by Jack Black) reunites with his biological panda father Li (Bryan Cranston) which cause a discomfort with his adopted Dad, Mr. Ping (James Hong). It is later reveal that supernatural villain Kai (J.K. Simmons) have been stealing other Kung Fu Master’s chi is ready to wreak havoc across China. Po agrees to follow his father back to ‘Panda village’ to learn how to live like an actual Panda while trying the master the power of chi. As one after another Kung Fu Master lose their chi to Kai, it’s up to Po to stop the mayhem. Will Po truly become not just a dragon warrior and save the day once again?

New baddie in the block 

With an already existing impressive assemble of voice cast, addition of an Oscar winner and nominees (J.K. Simmons, Bryan Cranston and Kate Hudson) lend their voice talent makes thing merrier. That however is also a down point as other remaining characters getting fewer lines. I could only count few words by Jackie Chan playing the monkey and even Dustin Hoffman ends up playing second fiddle this time around. Beside the flooding of new roles, I have no other complain because this is fun ride from the beginning. The music, the animation, the colour is once again at its level best capturing the essence of China. There is also a lesson to be learned about family value along with teaching not to be greedy both applicable for kids and adults alike.

Panda village. 

Despite the survival of Kung Fu Panda as a three-quell, I think it’s about time Po and the rest of Furious Five retire before becoming obsolete with ridiculous storyline in the future. The third instalment is just enough to make you love but also leave the legendary Dragon Warrior as one of the best animation ever produced. I know I will remember the Panda-monium (pun intended) created by a cuddly Panda called Po! 

3rd and final outing, hopefully. 

Trivia - Four of Angelina Jolie's children, Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, Pax Jolie-Pitt, Knox Jolie-Pitt and Zahara Jolie Pitt, are voice extras in the scene when Po talks to the pandas about a game plan.

P/s - Thank you Foodpanda for the tickets.

Zoolander 2 Review

Hurm...yeah...

Zoolander 2 Review – Tsk tsk tsk (that’s not the sound of a model on a runaway but me after watching this sequel).

Why Ben?
Why Owen?
Why? Why? Why? 

Former fashion model foes Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller) and Hansel (Owen Wilson) meet after avoiding each other for more than 15 years. They are brought together by Valentina (Penelope Cruz) who is investigating the mysterious death of pop stars ranging from Bieber to Madonna. While Derek is trying to get his son back, Hansel is struggling to get away from his ‘Orgy’ family. Their investigation leads them to another past rival, Jacobim Mugatu (Will Ferrel) who is trying to seek revenge over his imprisonment. With the whole fashion world icons gathered at one place, what will become of the finale?

The usual suspects. 

Seriously the only good thing about this movie was the celebrities spotting portion where the-who-and-who of the Hollywood glamour making their cameo. From the word get go try to name any or all of whom seem to have lend their precious time to show up in a crap of a movie. Try as I may, I just can’t find any good thing to say about this flick so yeah…Ben…please retire Zoolander once and for all, for all humanity sake.

She's hot. I trust her. 

If you are into cheap laugh and time to kill, by all means, ignore my review and go watch. Don’t say I didn’t warn you though ok. 

London Has Fallen Review

The President's Protector! 

London Has Fallen Review- Mike Banning is back!!!

The who's and who's of the flick. 

After previously surviving the North Koreans attack on the White House in Olympus Has Fallen, once again POTUS, that’s the President of the United State of America (Aaron Eckhart) is under another terrorist attack. This time however, the threat in comes in the form of infamous Pakistani arms dealer Aamir Barkawi seeking revenge against Potus for ‘murdering’ his family using drone during his daughter’s wedding. Only Barkawi and his son survive and they plot to take down as many world leaders as possible in a daring attack in London. In order to execute their plan, they conspire with a mole within the British security force and ‘kill’ the Prime Minister to gather other leaders all at one place to pay their last respect. Despite the tight protection, all hell breaks loose as one after another country leader are either shot, blown and thrown into their death. All except the main target (of course the POTUS lar) survives while being protected by Mike Banning (Gerald Butler). They have to work together to stay alive or face the wrath of a criminal seeking revenge. Can the President escape this time or fall prey to his enemy?

Do not mess with that pout ok! 

If you are into all those ‘shooting’ video games or whatever you call them, you will surely enjoy the bullet count in this flick. Not to forget the body-bags needed to load all the well, dead bodies. Long after the gunfire is over, one might still hear the shelling sound in their head because it seems like all the budget went into ‘buying’ those bullets. besides the gunfire battle, we also get to witness London turned into a rubble when one after another landmark are brought down in a fantastic way, the word fantastic is not meant to sound amazed but more of a shocking style. The team spared no expense on the CGI budget to create ways to blast everything in sight. Acting wise, there are great actors involved but all their talents are wasted with useless lines to focus most on the destruction part of the movie. Get your ear prepared for a lot of loud explosion noise and some gory scenes. You have been warned.

They tried to recruit me, I declined. Hehe 

What is it with Hollywood giving ideas to outsides on how to kill their President? It was intriguing at first but now it is just turning sour with the usual suspects getting blamed for it. First it was the Koreans and now back to what works best, a Muslim terrorist. Sigh…grow up please America. Yes the President is important but doesn’t mean other lives value less yes? From the word get go, one can see who actually ‘starts’ the war, to kill one person a whole family becomes collateral damage. Who in the right mind wouldn’t want to seek revenge over his family’s death right? I’m not saying that it is the right thing to do but we know how human nature works don’t we? Let’s hope this kinda of movie do not turn into a real life situation because then we can really say goodbye to humanity which I don’t mind considering that state of our planet lately but then, that’s just me. 

P/s - Thank you TimeOutKL for the preview tickets.  

Zootopia Review

Welcome to Disney's latest city! 

Zootopia Review – Disney is back with what it does best.

Can you name them all? 

A tiny rabbit, Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) has a big ambition to become a police officer, she works hard and achieve her dreams and travel to Zootopia, a buzzing city where predators and preys live together in harmony. Hopps however is stereotyped as not strong enough to carry out her duties as a cop and assigned to be a ‘meter maid’ by her superior. Not long after animals starts to go missing and Hopps teams up with a fox called Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) to try and solve the mystery. They discover more about themselves as they work closer together. Can these nature’s enemies crack the case or end up on the front page for the wrong reasons?

The human talents behind the animation! 

The recipe for a good animation is picking the right actors to bring life to the character and all the main voice casted were on top of their game from Jason Bateman, Ginnifer Goodwin, Idris Elda, J.K. Simmons among others. Another big advantage of watching Disney flick is the amazing colours to capture sceneries by paying attention even to the tiniest detail. We get to travel from one city to another when both Hopps and Wilde are trying to solve a crime. It will appeal both to kids with basic comedic jest and adult alike with the cultural reference. You are bound to fall in love with at least one of the animal character by the end of the movie.

You go Girl!!! 

Despite being a cartoon there is a heartfelt tale to it to respect others difference and not to label someone just because of the way they look or their background. There is more to a person and you will never know until you get to spend time with them. On that note go ahead and bring a new friend to catch this movie together so you can learn about each other after the screening, I did it and got to know some interesting fact about my quiet-but-actually-funny-buddy. Yearp...you know who you are! *wink wink (unless you didn’t read this review! O.O  *gasp!) 

Hail, Caesar! Review

Why you lied to me poster? Tsk tsk 

Hail, Caesar! Review – That time when I got fooled by the poster. (I’ll explain more)

Him, him, him, him and yeah...her... 

Hurmm…where do I even start? For starters, I’ve not watched any movie by the Coen brothers so I’m not familiar with their style of movie making and true enough I was annoyed after having to sit thru this not-made-for-everybody-flick. I can’t even explain the storyline because it was all over the place. From what I could grasp, it follows the life behind the scene of a movie production house and how one guy tries his best to make everything work. It’s not easy task as he is faced with one problem after another from a kidnapped movie star, unplanned pregnancy and even facing the communist. Yearp, I told you its all-over-the-place. If you have the patience, you might enjoy it otherwise one might just walk out of the cinema like how some did during the preview viewing.

What would you do? 

These names and their pictures on the poster is what fooled me, check out the names, George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Channing Tatum, Tilda Swinton, Scarlett Johansson. Despite the big names, some only play a small role and mostly just irritated the crap of me, Maybe it was just me but yeah, definitely not my type of film. There were however some funny moments but that was not good enough to engage my interest. I was just looking forward for it to end.

Go act in a better flick please guys. 

If any of you had watched it and have a different opinion please do share as for me this was just a waste of my time and thank God it was a preview or else I would have wasted my hard earned money as well. 

The Mermaid Review

Here fishy fishsy...

The Mermaid Review – You think got The Little Mermaid meh? The Chinese also have their own ikan duyung ok.

Love at first fin?

A greedy business along with his partner launches sonar that kills any sea creature in order to reclaim a part of the sea. His action endangers the way of life for mermaids living around the area. Their leader sends over one of the female mermaid disguised as human to seduce the greedy bugger but soon after both the human man and mermaid women falls in love with each other. Noticing the difference in his partner’s attitude, one of the business partners tries to intervene. Will this relationship end in tragedy or can they live happily forever?

Mermaid facing her Octo-man leader. 

Just one look at the trailer, I knew I had to watch this movie. With Stephen Chow helming the director’s chair, one can expect a lot of slap stick but funny jokes coming in from every direction. I was laughing so much even though it was just a lame gag. Besides the joke, a lot of money was also spent for the special effects which paid off well by the looks of it. The mermaids and mer-mans looked real, especially the Octopus leader. I’m sorry about not mentioning the actors name because most of them a relatively new, they acting however was good and manage to capture the audience attention. There was mixture of not just Chinese movie goers besides me being the token Indian, there were also Malays in the cinema proving Stephen Chow appeal towards global audience. Heck Mermaid has since now become one of the highest grossing movie of all time (for Chinese category lar) I heard.

This guy was funny as heck! 

Despite being pegged as a comedy, this movie does have a moral to it. That is taking care of our ecosystem before we face more serious environmental disaster by our greedy action towards Mother Nature. Laugh all you want as long as you get the point to preserve our nature before its gone forever.