Super Cop is supposed to refer to Jackie Chan’s character in this movie but could just have easily been referring to Michelle Yeoh’s character.

Jackie Chan’s Chan Ka Kui from the previous Police Story films goes to China and teams up with Michelle Yeoh’s Captain Yang Chien Hua to go undercover and break Yuen Wah’s bad guy out of prison and join his brother’s (Kenneth Tsang) drug gang in order to take out the Big Bad. After being accepted into the gang, they all go to Malaysia and meet up with Lo Lieh’s drug general. Lots of shooting and things blowing up ensue. They also have to bust Tsang’s missus out of jail before she is executed because she’s the only one who knows the number to the Swiss bank account where a fortune in drug money is stashed. Along the way, they run into Chan’s tour guide girlfriend (Maggie Cheung) who blows his cover because she is the dumbest girlfriend in cinema history.

The plot isn’t very strong or consistent. Most people don’t watch Chan’s movies for the plot anyway. The action is slightly different in some places because it relies more on guns and explosions. If you enjoy Chan’s comedy schtick, it’s dialed back here, but should be still enough to satisfy you. As always, the draw to his movies are the insanely dangerous stunts he performs mostly himself. Super Cop is not short on them. The bonus is that Michelle Yeoh performs most of her own death-defying stunts as well.

Chan gave his usual manic performance, though he didn’t mug as hard for the camera in this one. Michelle Yeoh’s gravitas made an excellent foil for him to play against and there was never any question that it was a partnership of equals. The two had good screen chemistry with Yeoh nearly stealing the show. It was hard to watch the talented Maggie Cheung play the jealous dim-witted girlfriend. Yuen Wah and Kenneth Tsang made excellent bad guys. One of my favorite old kung fu stars, Lo Lieh, made a brief appearance as a general supplying the drugs to the different cartels.

I would like to have seen more hand-to-hand combat, but what there was played out well, no surprise with Yeoh and Chan. The stunts were quite good with Jackie dangling from a helicopter over Kuala Lumpur and Michelle Yeoh landing a motorcycle onto a train. Rumor has it that the stuntman who initially attempted it broke his leg trying the stunt. Michelle Yeoh was able to land the scary jump herself.

Fans of Jackie Chan or Michelle Yeoh movies should be satisfied with Super Cop. The two martial arts stars bring enough daring action and excitement to help overlook the flaws in this film.

17 April 2022

edit--I liked this movie better than Police Story 1 which was graded on my pre-1990's curve so I went ahead and bumped this up to an 8 on the curve because the stunts were just as amazing and the cast was stronger. It also didn't have the 30 minute lull in the middle of the film. 25 March 2024

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The road to hell is paved with good intentions or greed, take your pick with this film.

Bruce Lee had started work on Game of Death when he paused it to make Enter the Dragon. Lee died before being able to come back to Game of Death. This movie used 11 minutes that he had filmed previously and added an abysmal story around those minutes using body doubles and clips from other movies.

The story employed for this movie was that actor “Bobby” and his singer girlfriend were being targeted by gangsters to sign with them. “Bobby” ended up faking his death because he kept getting beaten up and later when his girlfriend was kidnapped went on a rampage against the bad guys.

I cannot express in words how awful this spliced together piece was. They used Bruce Lee’s reaction shots from other movies-one an outdoor reaction shot while they were inside, a cardboard cutout of Bruce's face pasted over a double's body, clips from his movies and two doubles who wore sunglasses who didn’t look like him and weren’t even built like him. The fights were slow and poorly choreographed with lots of backflips. Sammo Hung choreographed the fight scenes and it was like he’d never seen a Bruce Lee movie. The story was heavy handed and barely made sense. Worst of all, they used scenes from Bruce Lee’s real funeral and pictures of him in his coffin in this theatrical abomination. The creators of this movie said they were trying to honor Bruce Lee and see that his film was completed, by exploiting his funeral images, that argument went right out the window for me.

The only part of this movie worth watching is near the end for 11 minutes when the real Bruce Lee battled two antagonists, one of whom was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar*. This 11 minutes is noteworthy for the quality of the fights and his iconic yellow and black tracksuit which has been used in other movies paying homage such as Kill Bill. The fight with 7’2” (218.44 cm) Abdul-Jabbar has also been immortalized. In the movie Bruce was planning, he would have to go through 5 levels of a pagoda fighting against different masters of different styles, exposing their weaknesses and show how his system was superior. What remained at the time were these two fights which were spectacular. No wires, no flipping around, just amazing fluid lightning-fast moves. The rest of the movie was exposed for its fraud and ineptness with these two fights. Bruce always had to try and slow his moves down for the camera and still his moves were often too fast for the human eye. The rest of the movie’s fights which were plodding had to be sped up at times.

A 10 for the two true Bruce Lee scenes, -500 for this ridiculous attempt to capitalize on those scenes and for using his funeral images for their own putrid gain. There’s a reason Chuck Norris and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar would have nothing to do with this movie fearing it was exploitive. Better to check out Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey from 2000 which contains more recently discovered clips from Bruce Lee’s version of Game of Death and his outline for that film. I could highly recommend that documentary, but not this movie. This Game of Death is only for Bruce Lee movie completionists with a high pain threshold.





*For those not familiar with him, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is a retired American basketball player, one of the greatest, who dominated the league for years with his legendary Skyhook. Kareem was Bruce Lee's student and friend. He is also a civil rights activist, author, and philanthropist among other things.

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Based on a short story by Kim Dong In, Potato tells the tragic story of Bok Nyeo, a young woman who is married off to an older aristocratic man. Kim Dong In who was living in Pyongyang was inspired to write this story when he witnessed the hard life of the people living in poverty around him.

Bok Nyeo found out in rude fashion that her new "aristocratic" husband was penniless and landless. He also refused to work and expected her to provide for him. The story follows her as she works odd jobs, begs, and even picks caterpillars off trees, all while rebuffing the advances of the men around her. Eventually, she is forced to go against her conscience and do things she would not have done before in order to stay alive and later to pay off her worthless husband's debts.

Potato is a grim look at what poverty can drive a person to do in order to survive. Unable to return to her poor farming family, unable to be rid of her husband, unable to pay off his crushing debt, with no support system and only a will to live Bok Nyeo's story was devastating to watch.

******Spoiler Below******



*****Spoiler******

I graded this movie down somewhat because I felt it was needlessly exploitive of her body, devotion, and sacrifice. In the end it implies she falls in love with the Chinese farmer demanding use of her body in repayment for her husband's debt and that's why she tries to murder him. The official synopsis would lead one to believe this is not how the book told this aspect of the story. Even though it sympathetically shows the detrimental effects of poverty and the vulnerability of women in a male dominated society, I had trouble accepting the oft used literary trope of a woman being sacrificed for the mistakes of others and the failings of society. Just my $.02

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Toho goes all in with marketing this Mothra movie to a young audience. There’s a plethora of rainbows, glitter, fluffy animals, and silly humor.

The three main human characters who are grade school age find a Furby-like creature, Gorgo, who appears at the same time as a ferocious water Kaiju, Dagahra. The Elias are back, good fairies Moll and Lora, and their trouble making sister Belvera.

The first half of the movie dragged for me, as the fairies and children took center stage fighting to see who would take custody of the furry little critter. Eventually, it’s revealed that a long-lost advanced civilization, Nilai Kanai, had polluted the waters and created Dagahra to feed on the pollution. The unfortunate by product were destructive starfish called Barums who destroyed life in the ocean. Eventually Dagahra turned on his creators and destroyed the once great city, going dormant until the pollution in the ocean roused him once again.

Lora, Moll, and Gorgo guide the children to where the city used to be and with Gorgo’s powers they travel beneath the ocean into the pyramid structure as it once again rises above the ocean. On their tails are two bumbling crooks guided by Belvera. It turns into a race to find the treasure which can stop the Dagahra who has taken his battle to land as well where he properly obliterates buildings. Mothra shows up to do battle with the Dagahra and the adventure finally swings into full motion.

For a 1997 children’s movie the special effects are fine. There are lots of lightning bolts, monster fights, and glittering rainbows. The miniatures were well made and Dagahra makes a menacing enough foe for the beautiful Kaiju. Mothra is granted new powers as well. The film’s score is rousing when it needs to be.

Rebirth of Mothra II may not be something most adults would enjoy, it would help to have younger children watching with you or to let the child inside you respond to a simple adventure story of developing friendship and redemption. Though it's post 1990, I did give it a small ratings bump as it was aimed for children and I wasn't its targeted audience.

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The Weight of Her is a short film from nearly 20 years ago that I stumbled across. I truly hope that attitudes have changed about girls and women and their appearances since this was made.

The story follows a slightly overweight high school girl who is constantly judged for her weight not only by other students but by the teachers as well. Her friend who took diet pills and lost weight was praised. She, however, was constantly criticized and told she'd never find a job or a man because she weighs over 50 kg.

The girls are weighed in class as the male teacher makes derogatory comments about them. At one point when a very overweight male teacher derides the FL for weighing too much she calls him on it. He tells her it doesn't matter how men look, women are the ones with the problem.

Fat shaming, shaming for double-eyelids, all appearance related bombs lodged at young women, destroying their self-esteem and causing them to do unhealthy things to try and be ultra-slim. Instead of building them up, and training them to be competent and confident, they are told their self-worth is in how they look and how much they weigh. The focus was never on teaching them to be healthy in body and mind, and to develop their skills so that they would be able to find a good job because they were qualified, not because they were thin and pretty.

I found this very difficult to watch because defining women by their looks and size is destructive and the society loses out on creative, intelligent people in the work force simply because they aren't attractive enough for the men who hire them.

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Don't start nothin', won't be nothin'!

If Godzilla is King of the Kaiju, Mothra is the Queen. Lighter in tone than Godzilla (1954), yet still with a message of caring for the Earth and cooperation, Mothra carved out her own story.

The synopsis tells most of the story. An unscrupulous relic plunderer kidnapped the Shobijin after an expedition to an island in a nuclear testing zone. The tiny twins had been befriended on their island by a reporter and a linguist who attempted to come to their aid in Tokyo. The Shobijin tried to warn them that Mothra would be coming for them and anyone in her way would be in great danger. Their pleading left the dastardly villain unaffected only causing him to double down on his efforts to keep the fairy priestesses to himself for his own profit.

Unlike Godzilla, who came to town obliterating buildings for seemingly no reason, Mothra was on a rescue mission. She arrived in her caterpillar form before transforming into her beautiful self. Tokyo and a major city in Rolisica (an amalgam of Russia and the US) took the brunt of her actions as she searched for her besties.

Mothra had one of the strongest casts in Kaiju filmdom. It's a good thing there was a strong cast as Mothra doesn't show up until over halfway through the movie. Koizumi Hiroshi who appeared in many Godzilla movies played the good-hearted linguist Dr. Chujo Shinichi. Kagawa Kyoko, from Tokyo Story, was the fearless photographer who worked with intrepid reporter, Bulldog, well played by Frankie Sakai. Hirata Akihiko from the original Godzilla made a welcome appearance. Shimura Takashi who starred in several Kurosawa movies, was the cranky news boss. Finally, the idols from their time, The Peanuts, twin sisters Emi and Yumi, brought the kind fairies to life. Their song "Mosura" woke their giant protector telepathically calling her to them.

Though there was destruction of buildings and cars, and the requisite helicopter blowing up, unlike in Godzilla, humans are not shown being killed. Mothra's story is gentler for a mass destruction movie as much of an oxymoron as that is. Song and dance numbers, a child looking to protect the Shobijin, and a big, beautiful monster made this movie more kid friendly, a direction Toho would continue to take the movies in, especially the Mothra movies as she evolved into a heroine.

The miniatures and Mothra were obvious toys, some more intricate and carefully created than others, but this was 1961 and viewers' imaginations played a big role in the success of these movies. I enjoyed Mosura, a somewhat slow-paced monster movie about a giant Moth stopping at nothing to save her friends.

21 February 2022

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Floating City takes place over several decades culminating in the end of the British rule over Hong Kong. Based on a true story the film focuses on Bo Wah Chuen, a man of mixed races and cultures, never fully accepted by any of them. Despite his humble up-bringing he manages to rise in stature and power.

Born to a Chinese mother, with a Caucasian father, and adopted by a poor Tanka fishing family, the Brits name Bo "Half Breed" and the Chinese call him "Mixed". Though he carries a British passport he finds out that he's not really British either. The story begins near the end so we know he succeeds but we also know as movie viewers that the climb will not be an easy one. Much of his youth is faced with helping his family survive and dealing with tragedies as they come. With the help of a priest, he enters school though he is older than the other students. Education opens his eyes to other possibilities, and he rebels against his father and the fishing life he is supposed to inherit. He discovers that the way out of his barefoot poverty and at times perilous existence is to find a job with the Imperial East India Company which runs much of Hong Kong. As a Chinese man his route is not without challenges, his inability to speak English has to be overcome and he's daily confronted by the limits of deeply ingrained racism.

Aaron Kwok gave a quiet performance as a conflicted man who was not sure who he is. Sometime too quiet. I found his character too enigmatic and unemotional in his relationships and struggles. Josie Ho who played Bo's mother in her younger years and Bau Hei Jing who played Bo's older mother both gave compelling performances as a woman who had to make heart-wrenching decisions through the decades for the family if it meant keeping them alive. Charlie Yeung as Bo's wife was given little to do. The heart of this story was between Bo and his tenaciously loyal adoptive mother.

Floating City flies over the complex issues giving us a nice overview of the problems in Hong Kong, but without connecting us emotionally with the tumult and cultural conflicts inherent in a place, and man, caught between two powers. It hints at a depth it is unwilling to dive into only skimming the surface as many of the performances do.

I wanted to like Floating City more than I did. It revealed parts of Hong Kong history not always covered in cinema but at times felt more educational than entertaining. That's not to say there weren't some deeply touching moments in it, I just felt it missed some opportunities to connect more with the audience. If you enjoy family stories and rags to riches stories, this is a movie you might want to check out.

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From Zero to, well, maybe a 4 or 5

Tai Chi Hero took up where Tai Chi Zero left off and promptly slid downhill from there. The gang was all back and added William Feng Shao Feng and Peter Stormare to try and shake things up a little.

Yang Lu Chan (Jayden Yuan) and Chen Yu Niang (Angelababy) were in the middle of their nuptials when her ne'er do well brother, Chen Zai Yang (William Feng), showed up spoiling the mood. Fang Zi Jing (Eddie Peng) who was soundly beaten in the previous movie returned plotting revenge with some help from Duke Fleming (Peter Stormare) of the British East India Company.

That set-up sounds boring and unfortunately for me, this movie lacked the zaniness of Tai Chi Zero. Grandmaster Chen Chang Xing's (Tony Leung Ka Fai) character was developed more while he worked things through with his estranged son. Tony Leung Ka Fai did his best as the master of martial arts who had to come to grips with the mistakes he made with his child. The two main characters, Lu Chan and Yu Niang were stuck in much the same place without any conflict which drained the energy out of their scenes. Poor Jayden, a real-life martial arts champion, was unable to convey more than one perplexed expression. Unsurprisingly, there was no chemistry between he and Angelababy. The film focused more on the Grandmaster and his estranged son, possibly out of necessity.

Tai Chi Hero lacked a definitive villain, Zi Jing wasn't sinister or competent enough or engaged in the story enough to be much of a threat. Eddie Peng wasn't able to overcome the caricature and corner his character had been written into.

The story spent time flashing back to try and build the characters' and story's background but in the present time there was no urgency or significant development. There was no high stakes battle at the end. In fact, the ending felt rushed, too easily wrapped up, and anti-climactic.

There weren't as many fights or as inspired fights this time around. Lu Chan was trained by his wife and father-in-law which was to set him up to become the super Tai Chi Master but was lackluster as a viewing experience. The one grand battle was sped up and blurred which always seems like a cheat in a martial arts movie with a real martial artist in it.

The steampunk, pop-ups, and comic book style wackiness were largely gone in this sequel. Tai Chi Zero wasn't empirically a good movie, but it was a fun movie. Tai Chi Hero took much of the fun out, tried to replace it with heart, which ended up feeling more like hot air. I'd still recommend it to people who watched the two previous movies, even though this one limped across the finish line.

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Jet Li goes to America when his sifu, Yuen Wah, disappears. Sounds like a perfectly acceptable retread of a hundred other martial arts movies with the added bonus of Jet Li and Yuen Wah. I was all in for this martial arts lollapalooza. How bad could it be? Turns out---really bad.

The Master was a failure on multiple fronts. The acting both from the Asian cast and the American cast was atrocious. Yuen's performance was at least interesting. Jet Li's try at comedy fell flat and I'll never understand why they kept that Timmy Turner baseball hat glued to his head during his fights. The American cast was at a high school play level at best.

The production values were bottom of the barrel. You could even see the mats in one shot where they were supposed to fall. Tsui Hark, the director, probably wishes he could take this one back.

The side characters were a mixed bag. There was a possible romance with a banker, Crystal Kwok, but she seemed way more into Jet Li's character than he was into hers. Three Latino gangsters became his unwanted disciples. And Yuen Wah had a blonde gymnast as one of his few remaining students. Most of these characters were around for comic relief and I use that term lightly.

The fights were okay, but not terribly inspired. Jet Li injured his wrist in filming which meant they had to work around it for the final fight scenes. Jerry Trimble and Jet Li made good sparring partners and at least there was some effort near the end to make the fights more exciting even if the sets were basic. Yuen Wah had some fun moments near the climax as well.

I hate to write disparaging comments about this movie because I had looked forward to watching Jet li and Yuen Wah in a movie together. With a heavy heart I have to write that it was painful to get through with only a few brief, entertaining moments. There is a reason this 1989 movie set on the shelf until 1992 after the release and success of Jet Li's and Tsui Hark's Once Upon a Time in China. If you are a fan of Jet Li it might be worth watching this earlier, pre-fame movie where the wirework was minimal. Just keep your expectations low.

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Green Dragon Inn is reminiscent of old westerns where the powerful landowner/mine owner has a no-good son who is finally apprehended by the law and is thrown in jail to be tried and hung. Minions with torches and six-shooters show up at the jail to bust the boss' son out. In this case the upright official carries a sword and instead of a jail makes it as far as the Green Dragon Inn with the local warlord's murdering son.

The righteous official upholding the law in this movie was played as stiffly and unemotionally as possibly by Yueh Hua, whose stony expression never changed. Fortunately, Lo Lieh swaggered onto the scene as an interested party, with a more compelling performance and kung fu. Polly Ling-Feng Shang-Kuan (yep, that's her whole stage name) popped in from time to time to shake things up with her sword and kung fu. This trusted trio bravely vowed to uphold the law in the face of overwhelming numbers.

With the exception of Polly's and Lo's, the fights felt overly staged at times, but were entertaining enough. The action was fairly non-stop. Oftentimes the story is overlooked, Green Dragon Inn's was simple but engrossing. This movie had a bad case of "run out of film" ending. If you watch a lot of martial arts movies, especially Shaw Brothers, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Green Dragon Inn had two problems that had nothing to do with the story or acting. In the version I watched the film had been ruthlessly cut to fit different screens. Much of the action, fighting and reaction shots were missing if they happened near the edges. This version was also dubbed. I'm pretty sure the same guy voiced all of the men's lines. As bad as dubbing is, in this situation, subbing would have been worse as the words would have been cutoff. I've seen movies where that happened and it was very frustrating. This movie is good enough with a famous enough cast to be remastered and restored to its former glory.

If you enjoy martial arts movies, especially from Taiwan, this is a good one to try. Even with the problems I mentioned, Green Dragon Inn was still a fun way to spend 90 minutes.

*As always, I grade these older niche movies on a curve.

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Hou Hsiao Hsien takes a look at a 1980's family living on the edge of Taipei's neon nights. At turns, frustrating, sympathetic, maddening, and understandable this fractured family is largely held together by the eldest daughter, Lin Hsiao Yang.

Lin Hsiao Yang (Yang Lin) has a short temper, works at Kentucky Fried Chicken during the day and takes classes at night school. When she's not busy making money and trying to better her life, she hangs out with her friends and tries to steer her older brother and younger sister away from stealing. Their father pops in and out, usually when he needs help. A lottery playing grandpa drops by occasionally to deliver food from a squawky daughter-in-law and quirky bon mots.

Lin Hsiao Fang (Jack Kao), the only surviving brother, and his gang try to carve out their own territory by opening a shady restaurant. Unfortunately, one of his crew draws the wrong kind of attention from violent and vengeful men.

Daughter of the Nile's characters are never fully delved into with the possible exception of Hsiao Yang. The cast is large and at times unwieldy. Hou plops the audience down in a strange slice of life drama without explaining or showing us much of what the characters are feeling or thinking. Even when tragedy hits, it's kept at a distance, as are the characters' responses.

I can see and understand the craft that went into the making of Daughter of the Nile, but in the end, I found it largely impersonal and the performances flat. Yang Lin's portrayal of our only dim window into this world came across as shallow when it felt like there should have been more depth to this character caught in almost unswimmable currents. She dutifully empties her bank account to any man in need, without a thought to her own precarious situation. Most characters have few, if any lines, wandering in front of the camera to give some movement to a stagnant and untenable lifestyle.

Daughter of the Nile is an interesting social commentary of the plight of those living on the fringe in the mid-1980's. I only wish Hou had let us into his characters' motivations and feelings so that a real emotional connection could be made to help us understand their lives better.

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Writer/Director Vivian Qu delivers a caustic commentary of the treatment of women and young girls in China. Shown primarily from a female perspective she lays bare the inequality of the sexes by a society still focused on a girl's virginity as a primary virtue. And also casts a dark lens on the men who exploit that limited virtue for themselves.

Two twelve-year-old girls are lured to a hotel by a powerful middle-aged man and raped. Mia, a young runaway working at the motel sees him break into the girls' room. Director Qu takes a risk in not having one protagonist, but two. One of the twelve-year-olds, Wen, was already suffering at school as a child of divorced parents. Qu largely focused on her experience as well as Mia's quandary of not wanting to help for fear of losing her job. Mia comes across as self-serving and hyper focused on her own survival, always one step away from homelessness. Wen must not only deal with her own experience but also her mother's response and the adults who should be protecting her but don't. The only two people seeking justice are Wen's father and her lawyer.

Warning! What follows may have spoilers...

The performances are spare but powerful. There are no histrionics, no sobbing uncontrollably and screaming. The girls and the lawyer know they are fighting a battle that will likely not be won, but keep moving forward, keep enduring, keep fighting.

Set against the backdrop of an ocean vacation town, with a giant statue of Marilyn Monroe, the seedy happenings were not done in the dark corners but in plain sight making it even more disturbing. It feels like Qu was able to shine a light without the censors cracking down because she might have been alluding to the Western influences of the objectification of women in the statue and possibly in all of the brides dressed in Western wedding gowns having their pictures taken on the beach as a source of the problems. But Western influences did not cause a powerful middle-aged man to rape two children. Or cause the corrupted police force and medical community to cover it up. Or cause a mother to blame her daughter for what happened. Or cause other parents to profit off of their daughter. Or leave a runaway without a safety net. Or cause an older girl to risk her health, fertility, and life to have a fake hymen implanted. Or cause a teacher to treat Wen as less than because her parents were divorced. These are societal failures for women and girls and Qu did not shy away from showing the toll they take.

Angels Wear White is a difficult movie to watch with no easy answers. It may cause despair and anger on the part of the viewer. But perhaps in giving an unflinching and unsentimental view it knocks down one more brick in the wall separating women and children (regardless of gender) from justice, justice lacking not just in China, but worldwide.

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Connected was an emotional thriller from beginning to end. A remake of the US movie, Cellular, Connected put its own spin on the story.

Louis Koo plays an inept debt collector who doesn't spend enough time with his son due to his job. His sister and his son are taking a flight out of Hong Kong and Bob, yes Bob, HAS to be there to send the boy off so as not to disappoint his son one more time. Being a thriller, we already know his trip to the airport is going to have challenges. Barbie Hsu as Grace Wong, throws him the mother of all challenges. She has been kidnapped by unknown villains and managed to use her engineering skills to make a damaged phone work, at least work enough to make a random call. And her one phone call is to timid Bob racing to see his son. Bring in disgraced police officer Detective Fai, played by Nick Cheung and the band is set to find its way together.

Koo connected with his character and managed to show Bob's development from coward to reluctant hero. Cheung's performance sold an otherwise weakly drawn character. Sadly, Hsu had to make the most out of being a damsel in distress, she was brilliant and resourceful, but still in distress and desperate for Bob's help. Liu Ye was able to make the cartoonishly evil Big Bad entertaining. Motorola should have gotten a supporting role as much as the phones had loving closeups.

Connected started and ended strong, the middle had a couple of slow spots, but overall, the pacing and nerve-racking action stayed pretty consistent. As with a lot of movies of this nature there was a great deal of predictability unless it was your first thriller. It didn't take much to connect the dots, thankfully, the trip between each turning point, even when implausible, kept the story moving at least at 3G speed. And along the way Grace and Bob, who were unable to see each other as they talked, managed to connect emotionally as well, a difficult task when both were facing death over and over.

I found Connected to be entertaining with strong performances. My only complaint, other than a few unbelievable bits is that it ran too long. It's worth giving a try, you can always hang up on it if it's not your thing, I kept Grace and Bob on the line until their conversation was over.

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The Korean peninsula hangs in the balance when a volcano on the Chinese border threatens to blow everything sky high! Luckily, for both Koreas, Ha Jung Woo and Lee Byung Hun are on the job!

Ashfall is an entertaining disaster and spy thriller flick that doesn't try to take itself too seriously. It has all the characters one would expect in a catastrophic volcano movie. Ha Jung Woo plays The Hero who is supposed to be retiring from his EOD squad (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), instead he's leading a group into North Korea to steal a nuclear bomb to stop the volcano from making rubble out of Korea. Along the way, he has to pick up a North Korean agent/double agent/triple agent?, the always cagey Lee Byung Hun, as The Anti-Hero, who has been jailed in a NK prison. Easy peasy, right? Back home giving them support is, Ma Dong Seok, going against type as The Scientist Who Warned Them All and Jeon Hye Jin as the Politico Who Gets It. Bae Suzy also throws in with the scientist as The Hero's Resourceful Pregnant Wife.

Ashfall actually feels more like a spy thriller film with a cranky volcano in the background. Our plucky band has to deal with betrayals and comes under fire from various political powers that don't want them getting their hands on a nuclear bomb for ANY reason and disturbing the power balances regardless of the fact that both North and South Korea are about to be wiped off the map.

The action is non-stop, almost from the first frame and never lets up whether it's fire from the sky or fire fights. As with most disaster movies, you have to let go of reality and just enjoy the ride as nearly everything that happens is implausible.

The heart of the movie is the bromance that develops between The Hero and The Anti-Hero. Lee Byung Hun's character development and the friendship he grudgingly develops with Ha Jung Woo's character brings out the humanity this movie needed as everyone is moving at breakneck speed.

If you are expecting a rational approach to a cataclysmic tragedy in the making, not only for the Korean Peninsula but having an effect worldwide with scientists and world leaders joining hands and acting altruistically and quickly, you're going to be disappointed. If you are expecting vehicles, people, and the starring volcano to obey the rules of nature, you might want to skip this. This is an entertaining, if at times ridiculous, thriller disaster movie set on high drive with a little bit of heart to make it not instantly forgettable.

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Zu Warriors boasted a heavy hitting cast, Ekin Cheng, Louis Koo, Sammo Hung, Zhang Zi Yi, and Cecilia Cheung. It was directed by Tsui Hark and had Yuen Woo Ping for the martial arts director. They obviously spent a ton of money on the constant CGI and SFX. Yet somehow, this fantasy martial arts film missed out on the one thing required of this type of movie---it should have been fun.

The acting was all serviceable. The problem is that there was no depth to the characters, no moment when we were able to see behind the frozen masks. Everyone was staid and emotionless making it very hard to care about any of them. Ekin Cheng's hair that magically blew in every scene had the most life of any character.

From beginning to end the CGI dominated the movie. Unfortunately, even for 2001, it wasn't very good. The cinematography was awful. The few sets that had any realism were also bad. Even the fight scenes, which did have some interesting moments were too often overpowered by the special effects. Very few scenes were not CGI enhanced which along with the unemotional acting made everything seem distant and cold.

The story had some good ideas and moments. Sadly, too often, it veered into an incoherent mess, seemingly unable to keep up with its own world building and mythology.

If a movie is going to take itself this seriously then it should be well thought out and give us characters to care about. Or it should have the decency to be so bad that it's good. Zu Warriors failed on both counts.

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