Movie Review: Defiance

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My Rating: 4Stars

This evening I saw the movie Defiance at AMC Theater, Pacific Place, Admiralty, Hong Kong. Another one of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

The movie is a true story of “Tuvia Bielski“, played by Daniel Craig, in Poland during World War II. Tuvia the eldest of four brothers was forced to take care of each other after their village was attacked and their parents killed by Polish police who were rounding up Jews for the German army.

Determine for revenge the second eldest of the brothers, Zus, was determined to fight the Germans and decided to lead a faction to join the Russian partisans after his wife and kid was murdered by the Germans.

I did not really like Craig as James Bond in Quantum of Solace last year, but in this movie he delivered a believable performance portraying Tuvia. There were the right amount of fighting for a war movie, while there were characters and stories to the plot for the audiences to focus on and become immerse into the movie. It passed my forget-where-I-was test, which usually means that the performance and plot of the movie successfully took me away to the setting of the movie.

If you are a fan of Craig, this is a must see. If you are a World War II history buff you will be reasonably entertained.

Rating Legend:
5Stars Not to be missed
4Stars Wait for the DVD
3Stars Buy from iTunes Store
2Stars Rent it on iTunes
1Stars Waste your time elsewhere

Movie Review: Valkyrie

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My Rating: 3Stars

This afternoon I saw the movie Valkyrie at UA Cinema, Time Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Another one of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

The movie started off telling the audience this was based on a true story, which I felt was the wrong thing to do. Since the story of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich were well documented, the audiences were able to guess what will happen in the reminder 116 minutes of the movie. Especially when the movie opened with Colonel Stauffenberg (played by Tom Cruise) making an entry into his diary, where he felt Hitler was destroying Germany. Within the first 5 minutes of the movie the audience knew that whatever Colonel Stauffenberg had in mind will not succeed.

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Movie Review: 300

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My Rating: 4Stars

This evening I saw the movie “300” at Golden Harvest Gateway, Tsim Sa Tsui.

Many in the United States claim that this movie has a lot of American propaganda. Having heard that comment before I saw the movie, made me appreciate why they would say that. Although, if I did not I would not have drawn that same conclusion.

This movie was littered with CGI, and after watching the behind the scene special on Discovery Channel I was amaze how seamless they were. CGI is advancing so fast that it will get harder and harder to distinguish on the big screen what is real and what is animated.

This movie brought me to realize that a new warlord would appear every few decades. So are these critics in the US correct to call the US; in particular George Bush, Jr. “the warlord” of our time? I will not dare to comment any further on the subject. May be next time when I have more time.

Anyway, without being too concern with the political inference of the movie, this is a fairly enjoyable movie and deserves my 4 penguins rating. If I had a HD TV I might even consider buying a Blu-ray or HD DVD of this movie.

Rating Legend:
5Stars Not to be missed
4Stars Wait for the DVD
3Stars Buy from iTunes Store
2Stars Rent it if you can
1Stars Waste your time elsewhere

Another Landmark Giving Way

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On November 12, 2006 Hong Kong will loose another landmark since 1957, the Central Star Ferry Pier in the Central district.

Today I found many many people taking photos in and around the pier. Most of these people are local Hong Kong residence. I wonder how many of them take the Star Ferry regularly. I personally take it at least once a week and sometimes more often, depending on where I am and where I need to get to on the other side of Victoria harbour. I find the Star Ferry ride relaxing and consider it a break from the hustling and bustling life of Hong Kong.

I really do not understand why the Hong Kong SAR government keep wiping away history of Hong Kong and pretend things never happened. I will save my detailed opinions on the subject for a later article.

For most cities who have less history than Hong Kong, they would try their hardest to preserve those buildings/landmarks with historically significants and would make them an integral part of the community even after the facilities have been decommissioned.

I wish government of HKSAR will take a lesson from these other cities before all of Hong Kong’s historic landmarks are things of the past and can only be found in photos.