Movie is terrible

I watched this movie and found it terrible. There were some scary moment for sure, but even before we get to the scary parts there is a really confusing tripping intro to the movie where our protagonist is working out how to deal with his girlfriend's death. This was a clusterf*** of nonsense until we get to the hiking trip.

The only actor worth a s*** was David Chiang as he had some real complex backstory that actually had me routing for him, even when his ultimate decision was the massacre of the entire village and kill his daughter's rapist before having his body split into different wine urns. That was some dark stuff, but I can understand and even sympathise with why he did it. The other characters that went on the hike and got tangled up in this mess I really didn't care about, and of course they give the main protagonist the power to see ghosts. Convenient yo.

It ends with everybody dying and the the evil ghost end boss is still floating around, so basically nothing is really rectified. Terrible

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Boring…

Anyone who tells you this is a good movie was on drugs while watching it. Too much CGI, the main protagonists are unlikeable and the movies’ biggest sin? Wasting the amazing actor Kara Wai!

A warning: there will be some big spoilers here, but these will be needed to reveal some details of the movie so you can understand my issues with the movie. It mainly follows this girl played by Jessie Li who could see monsters since she was a child so her mother abandoned her at a mental hospital. I know we are meant to feel sorry for her but I really didn’t care because the actor really couldn’t carry it off. It felt like she was trying to act *gasp!* and lacked authenticity.

And then we have the male lead Shawn Yue as Meng who is a monster hunter. Everybody in the movie calls him rubbish and a second rate hunter and this is true, he really is useless. Near the end of the movie, while still being useless, he loses his left arm so he gets a new one from a side character called Uncle Ping who puts all his power into it. Even with his new arm he still sucks, and only wins his fight against a top hunter because of some dirty tricks and all the while was as graceful as a drunk horse. The final battle was poorly choreographed and there was way too much cgi and shakey cam it was almost impossible to follow.

There is this super crystal that can grant hunters immeasurable strength. Our main male lead gets this crystal and yet is unable to defeat out main big bad played by Kara Wai. Instead, the final battle is ended in 15 seconds as Jessie suddenly pulls a Yugioh and understands the heart of the cards and does one move… hold her hand out and then twist it like Aaron Kwok in his Never Ending Love MV. This defeats Kara somehow without any dramatic build up or awesome final confrontational struggle. Kara just stands and screams and boom done. Lame.

I just hate how they wasted Kara because she is a fantastic actor that just oozes charisma and malice. In this movie she just talks a bit and gets around with loads of cgi around her. It was one really lazy part for her and doesn’t allow her to show off her other acting chops. There is one scene she leans into a sculpture and basically rubs her chest over it during an exposition bit. Was that necessary?

And a massive plothole here is that that super crystal could be absorbed to power up anyone, why didn’t Kara Wai use it to power up? Instead she leaves it floating around her domain… that makes no sense. When Shawn appears in front if her near the end and she says “you have absorbed the power of the crystal?” No shit, what were you expecting to happen by leaving it there?

The best part of the movie? Paper. A character that can origami himself into any shape and is the comedy sidekick to Shawn. But again, it is CGI. The CGI is very good, but it cannot carry a movie that is poorly executed. Avoid this movie

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What the heck is this?

After watching two incredible dramas with Kenneth Ma this year I thought TVB were only going to get better, but instead we get this abomination. Ruco Chan really is unlucky, the first drama with him as lead this year is a pile of manure and that breaks my heart. I really like Ruco and I really want him to be in an awesome, likeable role, but here his acting is just mediocre. It is not his fault as we've all seen him be awesome, but the role he was given is just... meh.

Besides from him, the other main characters are just annoying. Mandy Wong here plays a pretty pitiful role, but her being this huge pushover just had me so angry because her meekness goes from pitiful to just pathetic. Roxanne Tong has a main role as a cop here, but she is so irritating to watch because her acting is awful and she has no chemistry at all with any of the other characters of the show. She just spends the entire time failing as a cop and following Ruco Chan like a leech because of her hunches with little reason to do so. Kenneth Ma needs to show her how its done, man.

One thing that also did not fail to get my blood boiling is Angelina Lo. Every single role I see her in gets me mad because she aways plays the same whiney, moany annoying f'ing old woman that is so unlikeable it makes me want to throw my phone at the TV. She has been typecast into the rich annoying old woman role and I get it, she is really good at it, but whenever I hear her voice or see her on the TV I automatically brace myself for the inevitable wave of anger to crash over me like a tidal wave of diarrhoea.

The best part of the entire drama is Hugo Ng as this massive a'hole father to Mandy Wong's character, who just got out of prison after 30 years. He is allowed to let loose and overact to his heart's content, just eating up every single scene he is in by being the rowdy and unpredictable villain and it is just joyous to watch him in action. If this drama did not have him in it it would not even be worth watching. I am watching this purely for Hugo, more crazy Hugo please!!

EDIT: my goodness, I really want Angelina Lo and Roxanne Tong to just stop acting in this drama already. If they die I will celebrate, damn they are both as annoying as each other.

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Best TVB ICAC drama yet, but that's not saying much

Every year, TVB does a short ICAC series to discourage people from doing any dirty money laundering. I understand the need for this, but at the same time almost every year the short ICAC series have been awful. Do you remember the last few years of these? Nope. Because they all sucked.

However, this year there has been a sudden jump in quality. The actors are more compelling to watch and we actually do care a little bit for the characters we're watching, like Kelly Cheung being pregnant but also head of the ICAC department. The first episode even threw in Kent Cheng, who was great to watch being this greedy villain. He sold it really well and I thought the entire 5 episodes would be ICAC trying to nail him and him avoiding all ICAC assaults until the very last episode. When Joel Chan secretly confronted Kent and Kent got suspicious, that scene got tense. It made for some great drama right at the start.

But sadly, it fell apart so soon. Instead of a 5 episode cat and mouse game with Kent and the ICAC department, it did the classic monster-of-the-week sort of deal where each episode was it's own case, and the cases all ended without a satisfying conclusion, instead slapping onscreen text explaining what happened next. The classic rule for good story telling is SHOW, NOT TELL! When the ICAC made a move to arrest Kent Cheng at the end of the 1st episode, it doesn't show us what happened and just cuts to the text. Talk about giving the viewers blue balls! The other cases after episode 1 were all not as good and I have already forgotten them all.

This is not the worst part. Man, the music is still terrible. They took the classic ICAC theme music and remixed it but it still sounds awful. I think it is about time for an update TVB. Change it! And my gosh the character played by Yvette Chan was so annoying, just pure naïveté and stupidity that just got on my nerves. For all 5 episodes.

Overall, the quality is much better than previous years but there is still huge room for improvement.

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This has Wong Jing's trademarks all over it

TVB: What should we do for a TV drama?
Wong Jing: Hear me out. It's the 90s, there is this night club where the girls there sell their bodies for cash but they are not called prostitutes, we can't call them that. Then we have some goldfish there that men can only look at and not touch, but later they get touched, then we have this girl sell her virginity because that's what horny men wanna see. Add in a few triads and drugs and cops, this will be a hit!
TVB: Dude...
WJ: I'm bringing back Monica Chan
TVB: F yeah! I'm in!
WJ: And we'll play all the popular HK cantopop songs from the 80s and 90s!
TVB: Whoa... what about licence fees...
WJ: I know the owners, I'll call in some favours
TVB: Dude! This is gonna be a hit!

Update: ending sucks

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Boring af!

So boring! Man like wtf were the producers thinking? A young Justice Bao is all good but come on, a 10 year old kid as Zhan Zhao running around with a sword and doing dangerous stuff? No! What were they smoking?

The worst part is that it all takes place at an Inn and I could tell it would not deviate from that inn because I am 10 episodes in and they are still there investigating the same single case. I know this is a young Bao Zheng who has yet to become an official, but they make him look incompetent as he is stuck in this inn trying to unravel a murder mystery while being unable to leave due to the outside being too dangerous, all the while being protected by a 10-year-old. Geez.

It started off looking really promising but hot dang the mystery has no pulling power and I got so bored so I am going to drop it. The whole point of Justice Bao is that he solves multiple cases - one after the other - using his wit and intelligence to showcase his abilities, but this drama is clearly focused on one case and one location. This could have worked but only if it wasn’t associated to Justice Bao. Why do this?

But the worst sin of this drama? None of the female actors in it are memorable. They are all just a mush and nobody stands out at all. Wait I take that back, there is one girl Zi Fu Er who played Bai Ruan Ruan who clearly had a main role but was… sadly… ugly. They somehow managed to make a pretty girl look ugly, and that in of itself takes effort.

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