Beerfest — Silver Hawk — Leave it to the Nurses — capsule movie reviews

In an effort towards catching up, here are a few more capsule reviews. Note that we do have some full reviews in the queue, including Brick, Chiseen,The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai, and Stereo Future. On to the capsules:
Beerfest . Holy crap! A Broken Lizard film that’s actually funny! Okay, so Super Troopers had a [...]

MOVIE REVIEW . Rob-B-Hood

As much as I hate “it’s like film x meets film y” type proclamations, I feel compelled to do it with Rob-B-Hood. I mean, the film’s premise is so simple that such superficial comparisons prove quite apt. Rob-B-Hood sees Jackie Chan and Yuen Bio as thieves tasked with kidnapping an upper-crust society baby for a [...]

Nana 2 — Smoking Aces — Curse of the Golden Flower — Ô-oku — Sakuran — Paprika — Tekkon — movie trailers

It’s time for another trailer rundown.
Nana 2 . The next installment of the rock drama starring Japanese pop star Mika Nakashima. I haven’t yet seen Nana 1, but Nakashima’s actually a pretty good singer, so I am somewhat interested. Trailer here.
Smoking Aces . The latest in hitmen comedy, Smoking Aces looks about as fun as [...]

Sars Wars: Bangkok Zombie Crisis — movie review

Let’s face it. The Zombie genre is, no pun intended, pretty much dead. Since the release of Resident Evil on the original Playstation, filmmakers and film studios have gone zombie crazy, producing a glut of films running the range from brilliant Zombie action/comedies to tired Zombie remakes and half baked immitators, with an unfortunate emphasis [...]

Fearless — movie review

A nationalistic morality tale in the guise of martial arts epic (complete with underdog trappings), Fearless (aka: Huo Yuan Jia) tells the story of the life of Chinese national hero, and renowned martial arts master, Huo Yuan Jia.
The story opens in 1910 with Huo (Jet Li, Swordsman II, Fist of Legend) at a meet in [...]

Astonishing — Female Yakuza Tale — Hostel — Final Fantasy Advent Children — movie reviews

So here are a few more quick reviews of films I couldn’t, or wouldn’t devote more time to. And to those looking for bad reviews, you’ve got a couple to keep you entertained.
Astonishing (aka: Jing xin dong po) – The only astonishing thing about this film is how terrible it is. The film, concerning main [...]

Stuck in the middle with you.. China, Iran, and Korea

China is on the fence again.. this time with Iran and N. Korea and a whooole shitload of oil. If China sides with Iran this time, they may just lose their chance at remaining buddies with N. Korea in the future, but their natural resource dependency is, well to say the least, all consuming. [...]

US weighs in on Internet Censorship, plus China defends its Censorship policies

Three good articles today. Looks like the recent ruckus made by web users in the wake of the major search engine’s money grubbing kowtowing to chinese censorship policies has caught the eye of bigwigs in the capital. To help preserve “the greatest purveyor of news and information in history”, Josette Steiner, a State Department trade [...]

China’s ‘Unrestricted Warfare’

Yah, I know. Another China article, but this one is very interesting.
I just received some news about a Chinese Military manual, published a full three years before 9/11, that suggested acts of terrorism, such as the bombing of the world trade center, as methods of combating the United States.
From Cryptome:

Published prior to the bombing [...]

Asian Bird Flu in Africa

First cases of Asian Bird Flu found in a commercial poultry farm in Nigeria. Teams are investigating; so far they’re unsure if any humans have been infected.. certainly they have been exposed to it. Officials blame illegal imports.
Contrary to what the Chinese Govt would like to have the world believe, Asian Bird Flu [...]

Falun Gong practitioners barred from performing in San Francisco Chinese New Years Parade

Falun Gong, a group promoting wellfullness of the Mind, Body, and Spirit through a series of meditations and exercises based on Taichi and Quigong practices, has been barred from performing in San Francisco’s Chinese New Years festivities by the organization in charge of the event. Falun Gong members have performed, and won multiple awards, in [...]

Seven Swords — movie review

What is it about the number seven that makes for a successful action tale? Take for example Seven Samurai and its remake, The Magnificent Seven, Seven Years in Tibet… Okay, maybe not that last one. Part Seven Samurai, part Lord of the Rings, Seven Swords, the opening film of the 62nd Venice International Film Festival, [...]

The Myth — movie review

Jackie Chan has been in more than his fair share of misses these past few years. The Tuxedo. The Medallion. Shanghai Knights. Even his HK effort, The Accidental Spy proved more than a little disappointing. After being mired in Hollywood purgatory he made his triumphant return to Hong Kong cinema in last year’s New Police [...]

Initial D — movie review

When it comes to manga adaptations, much like American comic book adaptations, you run the full gambit of hits, near-misses, and absolute bombs. For every Ichi the Killer, there’s more than a few Eko-Eko Azaraks. Furthermore, when filmmakers of a country other than that of the source material’s origin decides to adapt the piece, [...]

China’s ‘Bill Clinton’ Condom

I just started getting these email from Newsmax that I never signed up for. Technically this would classify as spam, but some of the articles are a slight bit amusing. Take this for instance:
From NewsMax

CHINA NAMES CONDOM FOR BILL CLINTON
A Chinese company is honoring ex-president Bill Clinton by naming a new line of condoms [...]

Swallow Balls, Vegetarian Style munchies review

This is from the alternative meats aisle at the chinese grocery. We saw it, chortled, and bought. It is one of the foodstuffs built mainly on tricking the palate with texture rather than good or exact taste. It is also evidence that certain companies who create meatless options are baffled, often sneaking [...]

2046 — movie review — screener!

First and foremost I must say that the American trailer for 2046 has to be the most misleading trailer since the one for Coyote Ugly. 2046 is not Wong Kar Wai’s stab at future noir, a la Blade Runner, but the sequel to his previous film, In the Mood for Love. Now, the idea of [...]

EPISODE 3: The Backstroke of the West

Apparently in China the bootlegged version of Star Wars Episode III has been translated from English to Chinese, and back to English, with some very strange results.