Double Feature: Chasing the Dragon (2017) & Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Welcome back to the next double feature! Its been a while, right? I’ll try to be better…I guess I was more burnt out from writing reviews that even I could imagine. Overall, I’m just feeling mostly burned out and not in the mood for writing lately but I’m slowly getting back on track.

With that said, no specific reason when I first chose these two together but the banners are looking like there is a versus vibe to it. 😉 This double feature is 2017 Hong Kong film Chasing the Dragon starring Donnie Yen and Andy Lau, which had its wave of popularity when it was announced and released in Hong Kong (judging from Facebook activity) and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, a DC film that I honestly didn’t care too much about to begin with but it was going to leave Netflix and I just went for it, hoping that low expectations might make it a little more entertaining. One high hopes and one low expectations, lets see how they truly fare, right?

Chasing the Dragon (2017)

Director: Jason Kwan, Jing Wong, Aman Chang

Cast: Donnie Yen, Andy Lau, Philip Keung, Wilfred Lau, Kang Yu, Kent Cheng, Bryan Larkin, Ben Ng, Ken Tong, Dongdong Xu

An illegal immigrant from Mainland China sneaks into corrupt British-colonized Hong Kong in 1963, transforming himself into a ruthless and emerging drug lord. – IMDB

Chasing the Dragon is said to be based on a true story of real life gangster, Ng Sek-ho and also a remake of the 1991 film, To Be Number One. I don’t know much about the history and I don’t think I’ve seen that movie before so I have no idea how it compares. However, Chasing the Dragon is a good one. Its a bit different from how you would normally perceive in a movie solely focused in Donnie Yen’s fighting abilties.

In this one, he plays the gangster Crippled Ho who while has one or two really good fight scenes, he spends most of it being a triad leader. For audience who don’t speak Chinese, it is a pity because the achievement here is how Donnie Yen takes over the character and nails this really fantastic accent while not making it sound goofy but still manage to feel threatening especially since the movie is set in characters sitting in grey areas. On one hand, there’s a lot of bad that has happened and it feels like Crippled Ho was pushed into the situation and we can’t help but to fight for his escape and Andy Lau (the awesome actor that he is) plays Lee Rock, a corrupted cop who will do anything to be number one and finds his support with Lee Rock. You can see where his grey area is because he becomes fairly ruthless. Their appearances are aided a lot by an even more evil cast by Bryan Larkin as Hunt, an arrogant and even more ruthless British cop who is the top dog and feels threatened by Lee Rock’s promotion. This guy is scripted in such a  way that makes him so hard to like, and it was the intent.

Chasing the Dragon is very much a Hong Kong film and rather meant for a Chinese speaking audience. Be it the way the movie is and how the language, especially the slang nature of Cantonese can get lost in translation easy. The successes of the film also rely on various elements that rely on understanding why Donnie Yen is so convincing in his role. I’m not sure that if I was just reading subtitles and not totally understanding some of the history (the little bit that I know), how it would changed my enjoyment for it. There are some pacing issues and some rather forced bits possibly over-dramatized. While its a pretty good film, its definitely not the best. It met my expectations but I have to say that might have to do with my respect for both of these actors as well as the great supporting cast that was on screen.

Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Director: Zack Snyder

Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot

Fearing that the actions of Superman are left unchecked, Batman takes on the Man of Steel, while the world wrestles with what kind of a hero it really needs. – IMDB

Let’s make it really clear that I haven’t seen Man of Steel so I don’t know what happened to make Batman so angry except for the little recap snippet in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. As I said before, my expectations for this one wasn’t high. My difference here is just that I  didn’t feel convinced about this film from the trailer. I have no issue with Ben Affleck as Batman, maybe a tiny issue with Henry Cavill as Superman, mostly because I haven’t seen a movie he has done that I like. The issue with the film might not exactly be the cast because they are all great actors and do a pretty good job. Where this film falls apart is its length which made the pacing so horrible. The story itself falls apart and is flat out boring. It never feels like much happens. There’s some stealthy useless stealing scene, Wonder Woman gets in the way, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor does his crazy act and then takes them down a notch from their high superhero ways and they put aside from issues and team up to fight him. Not exactly a riveting story in my mind but some basic stuff with a lot of padding in between. I wonder if its because I haven’t seen Man of Steel that I don’t have that connection with Superman so I don’t have any stake in how much I care about his making it out of this or not. But the movie itself just wasn’t good because it was boring and at times, felt so pointless.

Either way, not one that I’ll go visit. So far, the top DC film out of the two (and a tenth of Man of Steel) that I’ve seen is definitely  Wonder Woman (review). Not in a hurry to catch up with the DC films just yet. I had low expectations and this one possibly even went a bit lower than that.

Gone Girl (2014)

Gone Girl is my most anticipated movie of 2014.  Its also one of the Top 5 favorite novels (if I had to rank my faves).  My neighborhood Cineplex only had the English version in VIP section so my boyfriend and I went to go check it out on a cheaper day. Its not the genre of movie I’d choose to go see at VIP but I just had to see it.  With a cast that I felt was perfectly casted and a director who is masterful at this sort of thriller, to say that I was excited would be a huge understatement. The only thing was to try to not let my high expectations get the best of me, which was going to be hard.

Lets see if Gone Girl lived up to my expectations, shall we?

Director: David Fincher

Cast: Ben Affleck, Rosamund Pike, Tyler Perry, Neil Patrick Harris, Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens, Patrick Fugit

Amy Dunn (Rosamund Pike) mysteriously disappears and suspected to be murdered on her wedding anniversary.  Her husband, Nick (Ben Affleck) comes home shocked to see the mess and calls the police.  As the investigation lead by Detective Rhonda Boney (Kim Dickens) gets further, all suspicion lands on Nick.

Gone Girl is a very unique story.  I remember reading this novel as one of the novels I was so hooked that I read into the late hours of night because I just had to know what was going to happen.  The novel was a one of a kind experience because of the layout of the story and the characters involved and just how it was so twisted.  You can read my full review of the novel HERE.  Whats a good fact to have, if you don’t already know, is that the screenplay is written by the author of the book, Gillian Flynn.  In my opinion, Gillian Flynn is quite the author because she’s written 3 novels and although the first two are not quite as epic as Gone Girl, they still are page turners. Now that I’ve gotten my fan girl moment out of my system. You can all get where my expectations kind of come from.

The best way to walk into Gone Girl is with as little knowledge as possible.  I wanted to punch the morning radio the day that it was released when they went extremely in depth with the synopsis.  You learn all the twists before it happens.  I didn’t even bother to watch the trailer for this one even though I’ve already read the book.  Too much information would ruin this for you.  Actually, I’m giving you a perspective from both me, as a reader that loves the book and well, a bit from my boyfriend’s perspective who knows absolutely nothing about it but still agreed to go with me. Other than the two guys next to me that kept pulling out their phones and had these flashing lights throughout the movie and was bothering me so much, the movie still was one of the best adaptations I’ve ever seen.  David Fincher’s directing teamed with Gillian Flynn’s screenplay put this Gone Girl story effectively on the big screen. I was captured by the movie (despite outside distractions) and how they structured it while my boyfriend, without any knowledge was still thinking about it till last night (which was the last I spoke to him).  Plus, the little changes they made were effective for movie purposes while keeping the most important parts and the message the original story was trying to send. Without diving too much into spoiler territory, the beginning and ending of this movie will make you feel like in a very awkward way that it completes itself but makes you think about the deeper issue because it really gets under your skin.

One of the most important parts of making Gone Girl succession is casting the right actor and actress to play the roles of Nick and Amy Dunn.  Some may not agree but although, I don’t have a very fond appreciation for Ben Affleck as an actor (although I do love his directing efforts), I saw him fit perfect for the role.  His expressions, the on screen feeling he can pull off was perfect for what Nick needed to be, especially when caught both in the attention of the media and the police under the suspicion of murdering his wife.  The desperation and despair was one that I saw him doing perfectly.  Ben Affleck certainly didn’t disappoint me and as Nick, he was absolutely amazing to watch as the story moved forward and it required a lot of the range that he had as an actor.  The other star of the show is the missing Amy, played by Rosamund Pike. I’ve only ever seen her in Pride and Prejudice and Jack Reacher (and thats the ones I remember her in) but this role was something completely different for her.  I think thats what makes this even more epic is that the cast was chosen for something they don’t usually do and these two characters are so multi-layered but developed so well.  A perfect cast needs phenomenal acting and the rest of the cast does a compelling job from Neil Patrick Harris’s role as Amy’s high school boyfriend to Tyler Perry playing an elite lawyer.  They all have roles that bring something to this entire plot.

This is possibly the best movie I’ve seen this year and seeing as it has such high expectations on my part and there were outside distractions, the complex story, the smart direction and compelling cast are also matched with a suspenseful score and the tone they set is just so awesome.  Gone Girl is a must-watch for this year whether you’ve read the novel or not.  The changes add to the story and its impact and most of the time, they are so minor but so much more powerful.  I highly recommend this but I also suggest that you go in with as little knowledge as possible or how they set this up.  This is a mind-blowing thriller and thats really all I have to say about this.

Have you seen Gone Girl? Did you read the novel? What do you think of David Fincher? Did you think Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike was made for this role?

Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Following Argo winning best picture at the Oscars last week, I decided to watch this flick.  Ben Affleck‘s directorial debut Gone Baby Gone.  I actually saw this one in the theatres with my best friend when it came out in 2007.  Of course, I didn’t know that Ben Affleck was the director but I was intrigued by the trailer. I know I’m a week late but I’ve been running a bit slow on these reviews and hopefully I’ll catch up soon enough.

Director: Ben Affleck

Cast: Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Morgan Freeman, Ed Harris, Amy Ryan, John Ashton

This place takes place in where a little girl, Amanda McCreedy has been kidnapped and the police have been trying to find her with all their forces.  This is when the aunt and uncle of Amanda, in desperation, goes to hire a private investigator, Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and his partner, Angie (Michelle Monaghan) because they are known to have connections to the criminal side of Boston.  Much to the police’s disapproval, the captain (Morgan Freeman) however still is obliged to assign two officers, Remy Bressant (Ed Harris) and Nick Poole (John Ashton). In their investigation, they learn that Amanda’s mother, Helen(Amy Ryan) is involved in a messy situation because of her way of living and people she connects to.  The further they investigate, the more secrets get revealed and it drags them deeper and deeper into a situation that they can’t turn back anymore.  (Did I make that sound really dramatic? But thats how I felt it was..)

This movie is all about the secrets so I had to be really short with the summary so you get an idea but not really spoil this flick if you haven’t seen it.  I’ve seen The Town and I probably won’t end up catching Argo until a few months later when it might *crosses my fingers* drop a bit in price. This is an intriguing suspense drama.

Its packed with awesome performances from the cast.  Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris was amazing as usual.  This is the only movie I’ve seen of Casey Affleck and man, he’s a pretty good actor.  He had me intrigued the whole way, dragged me into every tight situation and carried every intense moment on his shoulders.  Michelle Monaghan looks really familiar, I think she was the chick in Eagle Eye and maybe some other ones that slip my memory.  She was good too although I’d have to say that she didn’t really have much to say in my recollection of it now.  I still think she did pretty decent.  I really need to start digging up some more of Casey Affleck’s roles.  Any recommendations?

This was adapted from a novel (from what I’ve read) with the same name by Dennis Lehane.  It has now been added to my to-read list.  I’m sure that if the movie can be this intriguing, the source material is probably going to be 20 times better.  At least thats the usual case, we’ll see when I get to check it out. The story was just so captivating and mysterious.  The intensity was over the top crazy.  At the end of the movie (for those who know it), it had me and my boyfriend thinking a lot.  We even engaged in a discussion about the ending at 1am  or something, which is not very often that it happens.

I would definitely recommend this movie.  I don’t know if Argo can beat it but this movie ranks higher than The Town to me so far.  The story is suspenseful, the cast is fantastic and it’ll bring you for an unpredictable and intense ride and possibly leave you with a good amount of thinking at the end.  Affleck’s career as a director is one that I respect a lot right now and I hope to see more movies from him that are as great as this one.

Oscars Night!

With my new Disney addition, Lotso from Toy Story 3 watching Oscars

I made it home in time to watch the whole Oscars night last night.  I even had time to eat dinner and get all comfortable because I knew that it would end at midnight. Whenever I come back from Toronto, there’s always a decent amount of unpacking and I’ll definitely be having another food review and some cool finds that I have.  A little sneak peek would be here as I made some tea, sat down comfortably with one of my new additions and eventually my boyfriend did join me when the actual Oscars started!

I even got to see a bit of the preshow on the red carpet and the dresses and interviews.

I opened it midway right in time to see who was presenting and interviewing everyone.  Of course, I landed right around interviewing Sandra Bullock and she was just so elegant.  After that we have Anne Hathaway.  I don’t know about everyone else and I haven’t read any tabloids but my first impression was that it looked like a pink apron.  Definitely not a good choice in  my opinion but hey, she’s still a beautiful actress and I’m sure there are people who liked her choice.

Speaking of that, my favorite three dresses of the night has to go to these beautiful elegant women in no particular order:

Jennifer Lawrence

Sandra Bullock

Amy Adams

For the record, if you haven’t been following me for too too long, you’d know that I only watched a small portion of the movies that were nominated but I think I follow a whole lot of movie blogs and in turn, it made me make a lot of good guesses.  I figured that Ang Lee would win Best Director and I guessed Anne Hathaway would win Best Supporting Actress (even if I still had a moment that she wouldn’t).  I figured that Daniel Day-Lewis had a really good chance at winning Best Actor but I didn’t know that this time broke the record of the first person to win 3 times best lead actor.  Now that is a huge accomplishment.  As for Best Actress going to Jennifer Lawrence, I really didn’t think she had a shot until I saw the snippets of the movies and thats when I really thought that she did have an equal chance at it.  Of course, her dress was bulky so down she fell as she was overjoyed and attempting to walk up the stairs.  Now Jennifer Lawrence is on the grid officially and I can see her with even more movies in the near future.

The biggest fight this year was probably Best Picture.  The last Oscars I watched was probably at least 7 years ago because I used to watch movies and the Oscars in totality with my dad.  It was something we bonded with.  I always remembered it having only 5 movies in the race but apparently now we’re at 9.  Talk about tough choices, right? I was surprised that Argo won.  I really was.  Lincoln had a lot going for it from what I’ve heard.  Deep down, anyone who knows me would know that I’d want Les Miserables to win but I also knew that the possibility was quite low because its not one that EVERYONE likes, it was more towards a certain group of people who preferred this sort of musical.  Argo won and I’m seriously happy for Ben Affleck among all of them.  He’s proven himself quite worthy in his whole career and he’s grown quite a bit into the director and producer that he is now.  I really look forward to seeing what his next project will be.  Definitely seeing some great things for him if he continues the way he does.

So now that we’ve looked at those big awards, I was super happy when Disney’s Paperman won Best Animated Short.  I had shared that video a few weeks ago on Twitter and it was just such a fun and cute movie.   I put in the video below just in case you didn’t get a chance to see it 🙂 And then, for Best Animated movie was Brave and believe it or not, I saw it! I actually wasn’t sure who would win for that one but I was sure that Pirates wouldn’t win (even if I did enjoy it quite a bit, you can see my review HERE).

Now on a more personal level, sitting down to watch the Oscars means a lot to me.  It included having memories of spending time with my father.  I wrote a deep personal post about moving on in December (you can check it out HERE if you’d like) related to it.  This year, I felt like since my blog was slowly getting in more reviews, it made lots of sense to sit down and watch the Oscars again.  I miss my dad of course and I think doing it made me move on a little bit more but you know, last night would be a night he would enjoy.  We had some James Bond songs and then on top of that, in the memoriam, that part really got me when Barbara Streisand came out and sang one of my dad’s absolute favorite songs.  That was the highlight of my evening. However, I can’t seem to find a video of that so maybe in a few days, we’ll have some better quality ones appearing in Youtube if you didn’t see it.

After seeing all those snippets, I just know that I have so much catching up to do now.  I’ll be working hard on that and hopefully this year, I’ll be a bit more on track with movie viewing, at the minimum try to catch the big ones.  It was a fun night for sure, and I’m definitely going to get more prepped for next year’s awards 🙂

What was your surprise win(s)? How about your favorite outfit? I couldn’t pinpoint my favorite speech, did you have one?

Valentine’s Marathon: He’s Just Not That Into You (2009)

It seems that these multiple story movies are becoming a thing.  They usually don’t get a lot of praise except for Love Actually, which was possibly the first of its kind.  This one doesn’t seem to have a lot of good ratings on it either on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes but when it first came out, I had no expectations from it at first and it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. Now I’m going back to see it again for this marathon, lets see how that went…

Director: Ken Kwapis

Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin, Kevin Connolly, Scarlett Johansson, Bradley Cooper, Ben Affleck, Justin Long, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Connelly, Drew Barrymore

Based on the self-help book by the author of Sex and the City, He’s Just Not That Into You looks at different types of relationships amongst a group of people that are linked together through friends, coworkers, acquaintances or simply coincidence and how a lot of people will misread and misunderstand the signals that other people send off.  We start with Gigi (Ginnifer Goodwin) who is on the search for a relationship.  She always wonders and waits to see if a guy will call her back after a first date or after a first meeting at the bar.  That is until she meets the friend of one of the dates that she decides to try and “accidentally” see.  Alex (Justin Long) is the manager of the City Supper Club and he is the exact opposite of Gigi because he can read the signals of others very well and because of this, he starts helping Gigi in her future pursuits.  At the same time, the guy who Gigi saw at the beginning of the movie, Conor (Kevin Connolly) who is obsessed with Anna (Scarlett Johansson) who had slept with him before but now only finds him in times of need for comfort and affection.  Anna is trying to build a career as a singer and at the supermarket one night, she meets Ben (Bradley Cooper) who is a married man and is in a business that can help her with her career.  They are attracted with each other and despite Ben trying to resist, he eventually has an affair with her while his wife Janine (Jennifer Connelly) is putting all her focus into their new house’s renovations.  At work, Janine’s coworker Beth (Jennifer Aniston) has been in a relationship with Neil (Ben Affleck) for 7 years and she wants to get married however, Neil does not want to.  A string of stories that looks into a guy’s signals and the rules and exceptions of whether a guy is into you or not.

“If a guy’s into you, he will make it happen no matter what”

Let me just say that I originally didn’t really think I would like this movie at all.  The first time I saw this and realized that it was based on the Sex and the City author.  I don’t really have too much love for those series. Never really caught on to it maybe or its just not my type of series. Either way, this flick was definitely good.  It definitely sticks to its boundaries of being a romantic comedy and especially with a relatively strong cast.  It was witty and fun.  They put in interviews of other people to make it a bit more original with certain issues they were dealing with for example, “if a man doesn’t want to marry you…” then it flips over to people talking about it and some of them are funny.

If you can brush off the whole trying to be a self-help and teaching us the signs of when things aren’t working out which from the things I’ve read are usually based on stereotypes because we all know that every relationship is different.  If you just solely focus on the stories and think about it in one basic way: Each girl is the exception to the rule when in the eyes of the guy that loves us for who we are.  Its as simple as that.  So take that and just go for the ride and you might enjoy this movie.  One warning though, even if you fellow men out there are okay with rom-coms, I really don’t recommend this one to any guys.  You might want to either fall asleep or yell at the stereotypes (unless you like any of the actresses for their good looks).  I mean, even I wanted to yell at the stereotypes, especially those that Gigi had where she just sits by the phone and waits for the guy to call.  Are all girls supposed to be portrayed as being that desperate?  That part really bothered me because I guess its an extreme to bring Gigi to portray the desperate need to find a guy and how she doesn’t know how to read the signals that the guy is sending out each time so she just hopes all the time. Its the concept of never losing hope that is the theme of her story, so I guess you can’t really blame her.

As much as all the side stories were cool, the main story is of Gigi’s search for romance and how she learns that its better to have tried to fall in love than to just block out the feeling of being able to love someone.  This is miles and miles away from as being as epic as Love Actually (which I reviewed HERE!), but it does have some witty and fun moments and as always in these flicks, some sweet and touching moments as well.  No tears will be shed but there is enough smiles and laughs to be had.  I state once more that guys should avoid this…it can’t be more targeted towards girls than teaching girls how to know when guys aren’t into them.  This may not be an epic movie but as generic as it may seem, it is really helped a lot by the chemistry that the talented cast brings.

Oh right, one more thing, if you do end up seeing this, you should definitely wait for the ending credits because they still have a few scenes there and those are actually pretty good and wraps up the movie in a pretty good way.

Have you seen this? Did you like it? Do you enjoy these multi-story setup for movies or are they confusing and hard to perfect?

The Town (2010)

Director: Ben Affleck

Cast: Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, Blake Lively, Jon Hamm

Set in the town of Charlestown where bank robbers are born and passed down through generations, Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck), James “Jem” Coughlin (Jeremy Renner), Gloansy and Dez are the next generation in a group that starts the story robbing a bank which results in them taking the bank manager as a hostage and then letting her go unharmed.  This starts to worry them when the FBI, especially Special Agent Frawley (Jon Hamm) gets involved and Doug decides to approach the bank manager, a woman called Claire (Rebecca Hall) and starts to fall in love with her.  Just as he wants to leave town with her, there is a big job that comes up that he has to take.  The question now is whether he’ll be able to get out of this mess and manage to leave the town.

I liked the cast a lot.  Ben Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall and Jon Hamm and even many of the other characters was amazing.  They were great in their roles.  I really enjoyed that a lot.  The only person that I didn’t enjoy was Blake Lively as Coughlin’s sister and also a girl who loves Doug.  I’ve been a fan of Blake Lively in Gossip Girl and even when she did The Sisterhood of  the Traveling Pants movies.  She was fantastic in that but somehow for this one, her accent sounded forced and it bothered me because if I didn’t have the subtitles, I wouldn’t have understood what she said at all.  However, she didn’t have that much screen time so it was alright.

I’ve never been a big fan of Ben Affleck as an actor, but funny enough, I’ve been seeing his movies which he directed.  This one definitely was a good movie, maybe not a great one for me.  However, I did enjoy Gone Baby Gone so thats why I had decided to give this a shot.  Point is, even as an actor here, I found him very enjoyable.  Maybe its because this is something that he’s creating himself so there is more heart and soul that he puts into even the role he takes.  It doesn’t really matter because it works to its advantage.

Also, I felt that I enjoyed the second half of the movie a lot more than the first part.  It really takes some time to get into the whole story.  Its not that the basis is bad.  I did some research and its based on a novel called Prince of Thieves which I will add to my reading list.  As a crime thriller, I felt that it really caught my attention near the climax when things started getting bad and then eventually get to the very awesome ending.

Even though thats the case, I did sit to think about this a bit and I’d say that its definitely worth a viewing.  The good parts really more than make up for the parts that were lacking and I’m pretty sure that I would gladly sit down and watch this again.

So what do you think about The Town? How about your views on Ben Affleck as a director? Or maybe you  liked him better as an actor?