Journey To The West: Conquering The Demons (2013)

[Yesterday's post took me 3.5 hours to finish, discounting other coinciding internet activity. Let's hope that I can replicate last night's effort in far less time; otherwise I won't have enough sleep tonight.]

I re-watched this movie on the flight to Frankfurt, so I was able to refresh myself and fine-tune my opinions.

*spoilers*

On my initial watch when it was released (March, I think), I felt that the love story was contrived. After all, the monk hadn't shown much interest in the bounty-hunter chick, and until the point she died I thought that he may only have the slightest bit of feelings for her, and I wasn't exactly sure whether he said he loved her because he really felt that way about her, or that she was dying and he didn't want to make her feel worse.

Well, in the airplane version, they kissed.

That's right, folks, the monk kissed the dead bounty-hunter chick. That wasn't in the Malaysian release, because here, censors censor everything, unless it's blue peen; then the practice is different. They censor it the first few times, then forget to censor it for the rest of the movie.

Digressing, now I'm sure that he loved her, but still feel that the build-up wasn't enough. It did help, though, that I got to watch the original Mandarin release this time (we only had the Cantonese dub in Malaysia).

Anyway, the love story was the only thing that didn't gel well with me; I enjoyed the rest of the movie.

For the uninitiated, Journey to the West is a Chinese novel revolving around Xuanzhang (a Buddhist monk), who is instructed by the Goddess Guanyin to travel to India to obtain sutras. Interesting times abound with evil demons and other spirits, as Xuanzhang's flesh is believed to grant immortality to its eater. Since India is quite a ways from China, as protection, he is given four disciples of demon/spirit origin (in atonement for their sins). The most famous disciple is the Monkey King, whose mischief and bestial nature is controlled by the gold circlet/headband on his head, which Xuanzhang can tighten by chanting mantras. Anyway, since this post is meant to be a movie review, you can read up the Wikipedia summary here.

This movie is a prequel of sorts. It starts by portraying our monk as a demon-rehabilitator (I know that's not a word but you get what it means) that reads from a book called the 300 Nursery Rhymes, asking them to repent and be good. Throughout the film he encounters briefly the demons that will be his disciples and companions to the West (sadly, the Dragon of a white horse did not get love in this one), and romance (the one I was talking about earlier) where the girl did all the chasing.

Since Stephen Chow (the film's director/writer/producer) was the Monkey King himself in TWO movies (A Chinese Odyssey: Parts 1 and 2 from the 90's), I was very interested to see where he would go with this, since it's been a very long while since we heard from him (CJ7 doesn't count). The man himself didn't make an appearance in the movie, but his trademark humour–slapstick, ridiculously impossible situations (that words simply can't do justice) and various wordplay dialogue ("important" to "impotent")–was everywhere. It sounds just as funny in Mandarin as it did in Cantonese (since I don't really understand both), but I get now why we got the Cantonese version: the movie borrows some lines from A Chinese Odyssey, which is fully in Cantonese. Even the song used for the dance in the moonlight is from A Chinese Odyssey (albeit it's in Mandarin now).

Silly humour and ineffective romance aside, I do applaud the plot development. Being a prequel, it shows Xuanzhang's journey (see what I did there?) in finding himself, and how Sandy (water demon in this one) and Pigsy (the pig demon with the inn) are captured and eventually made disciples to Xuanzhang. Also saving the best (or most footage) for last, Xuanzhang seeks Monkey's help in defeating Pigsy, and is eventually tricked by Monkey into destroying the lotus flower acting as his prison seal (it's complicated), which culminates into a showdown between Monkey and some demon hunters before being subdued by Buddha.

In the process, Xuanzhang attains enlightenment with the death of the bounty-hunter chick (played by Shu Qi, who has come far from her annoying Storm Riders days), and discovers that true love (contrary to his belief) would not pose any hindrance to his monkly duties.

Oh, and in this installment, Xuanzhang becomes bald (like how a monk would be) because an enraged Monkey pulls all his hair out when Xuanzhang refuses to stop praying to Buddha. Xuanzhang actually has a thick set of hair (so thick it's a wig) through most of the film.

Do watch this movie, if you get the chance. You can appreciate the wordplay better if you understand Mandarin/Cantonese, but the English subtitles were up to par (like those for Kung Fu Hustle). You don't miss much either way.

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Iron Man 3 (2013)

[In this continuing series, yours truly will attempt to post at least one substantial... thing... per day. This is Day 1 (because the announcement day doesn't count.]

This isn't so much a belated review as it is a belated rant.

Iron Man 3 was mediocre, though it was better than Part Deux (not saying much, is it?). Some slow moments were surprisingly not draggy (kid didn't annoy me), some ridiculous (on second thought) moments seemed cool (Pepper getting Extremis? Ha! ha!), and it passingly acknowledged that the Avengers exist when a small child asked Tony how he got out of the wormhole. Plot niggles aside, in a nutshell it wasn't as 'meh' as I'd expected, but neither did it meet expectations.

All because of the twist.

In the comics, the Mandarin was Iron Man's arch-nemesis, and he has ten magical rings, each with their own special power. Modelled after Fu Manchu (long robes, slit-eyes, goatee, long pointy fingernails), conceptually it may sound silly but the Mandarin often gave Tony a run for his money, simply because he was intellectually at par (or better!) with Tony and he was ruthless enough to carry out his evil deeds.

In short, he was to Tony what Lex Luthor is to Superman. What the Joker is to Batman.

So I was excited when I found out that the Mandarin will finally make an appearance in the third Iron Man movie. And when initial casting news said that Andy Lau will be playing a Chinese doctor/scientist, I got even more excited. I mean, you can't be having Andy Lau play a random doctor for five seconds, there's gotta be some kind of pay-off, right?

Even after Lau was re-cast, I still held out hope that there will be a twist somewhere involving the Mandarin, and then I would have self-bragging rights (because really, who would believe me?) that I was right about Ben Kingsley not being the real Mandarin.

Boy, was I hella wrong. And not in a good way.

In the movie, the Mandarin is just a "concept" created by the real villain, who doesn't even have rings. Apparently, the makers found it fit to degrade the Ultimate Mandarin into a complete and utter fake (by that I don't even mean that it's a pseudonym or anything like that), opting instead for fan-service instead of fan-tribute. I'm referring to the scene where Guy Pearce, with Chinese dragons all over his chest (like, whut?), yells that he's the Mandarin.

Pace-wise, it's out of sync. Guy Pearce waited until he and Tony were in the midst of the boss-fight, before declaring that he's the Mandarin. It's like an ad-lib, except that it'd be an insult to Guy Pearce's ad-libbing skills because I think he can come up with something far, far better than plain ol' simple, "I am the Mandarin!".

And it feels like a last minute dialogue decision. If you're looking to combine characters, you do that so that the new character becomes more awesome, not the other way around. Like Movie Whiplash, fr'instance. He's combined with the Crimson Dynamo, but no one seems to care (at least, I didn't) because Mickey Rourke was totally bad-ass. The Grand Prix sequence, with the two electrical whips rending cars in two? Bad- and ass.

With this movie, the writers didn't really give Guy Pearce the chance to be a yellow-faced be-ringed Extremis-ed bad-ass. He's just a glowing dude with random black Oriental dragons all over his chest that can breathe fire. (wow I just realised symbolism.)

Why, then, would you even use the Mandarin as a character in the movie the first place?

I read an interview with the director that the makers chose this direction with the Mandarin because they didn't want to perpetuate the Fu Manchu stereotype.

What bollocks.

If you can 'update' Jarvis and make him an omnipresent computer system (on paper, he's a very human butler), you can certainly update the Mandarin to be a Chinese businessman in an Armani suit with a penchant for the occult (read: rings), and if needed, he can command an army full of Chinese men and stuff.

[Personally, I don't think Hollywood gives a Fu about Fu; all they care about is getting past Chinese censors.]

And please don't get me wrong, I'm not crying fan-boy foul here. I'm just pissed that after two Iron Man movies with hardly any action, with Robert Downey Jr saving each film by the skin of his sarcastic teeth...

*exhale*

As an audience, we expect a lot from third movies, despite being continuously disappointed time and again. Iron Man 3 may overall be better than similar past outings, but then again, my definition of "going out with a bang" does not consist of 42 Mark Suits blowing up into fireworks at the same time.

That scene was so pointless.

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Post-hiatus (that's right!) ramblings, and general update.

Hello, dear, dear reader!

Okay, first off, I'm pretty much a headcase at the moment.

I mean, this post is short not for artistic reasons. I've always prided myself in being able to write whenever, and currently I am lacking inspiration, with very minimal impression of the movies I've seen during the summer (I'm not referring to procrastination here; I can't articulate let alone write a damn thing minutes after I've left the theatre).

Movies used to be the easiest to write about. My brain seems to go into shutdown whenever I'm not at work, and doesn't want to translate anything into type.

So what this post is for, really, if not to make more excuses and at least, try to fathom what is bloody wrong with me.

Hence, awesome reader (if you're still with me), I'm gonna force myself to write. Starting tomorrow, I will multi-browser window less, focus on banging out just one topic (in hopes that I can get the rusty cogs of creativity to roll smoothly again), and I aim to at least PUBLISH ONE POST A DAY.

YES.

ONE PER DAY.

EVEN IF I HAVE TO FORCE-POOP IT OUT.

That (and work) aside, this is what I've been up to:

1. Volunteering as a proofreader with Distributed Proofreaders.
   Project Gutenberg is an online archiving initiative to turn copyright-expired books (read: really old books) into free ebooks for download to the general public. Newbies start off at P1 (most basic) and progress through two higher rounds of proofreading before going to formatting.
   There's something rather addictive in comparing scanned texts with typeface (proofreading has no need for HTML tags), so if you're interested, please check out the above very-first link.
   
   
2. Playing Teacher Story. Pixellated characters get me.
   
   
3. Other online activities include YouTubing for Honest Trailers and Everything Wrong With [Movie Title], and going on PerezHilton.com and Tom Hiddleston's Twitter. I'm lucky Benedict Cumberbatch doesn't have Twitter.
   
   
4. Went on an eight-day packaged tour in Europe last two weeks. And no, I haven't forgotten that I have a five-year old Australian and a two-year old French-Swiss-Italian mix in the wings.

Phew. My post for the day. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go prep for tomorrow.

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