Spaceman-Spiff December 11th, 2006
Saw a few live-action anime/manga adaptation movies last weekend, and the following are my impressions:
Death Note
Links: Official Website – IMDB
Raito (Light) and L both looked ugly compared to the manga. Well, more for Raito. The only character that looks good is Ryuku because he’s a CG character. Some of the acting are also bad, especially for Raito.
The story is suppose conclude in the 2nd Death Note movie, “Death Note: The Last Name“.
The Prince of Tennis
Links: Official Website – IMDB
Where to begin… There’s so many things wrong about this movie >_< .
The characters mostly appear only for fan-service. Besides Ryoma and Tezuka, the rest of the players don’t have a lot of screen time or character developments. Tezuka’s actor looks cool, no comments on the rest.
The story feels very rushed. The only matches that are covered entirely is Seigaku vs Hyoutei. The movie wasn’t translated, but it was easy to understand.
When you watch Prince of Tennis anime or read the manga and think that all of those tennis stuffs don’t make much sense, the live-action is even more absurd. Looking at those actors playing superhuman CG tennis feel so weird you feel you want to laugh. Yes, me and my friends did laugh a lot watching this movie. Not because it’s comedic, but because some of the stuffs they did are so stupid, it’s funny.
Detective Conan
Links: Official Website – IMDB
Titled as “Detective Conan Drama”; tells the story before the events of the first chapter of Detective Conan manga.
The movie is pretty heavy on dialogs, and without translation, I found myself falling asleep at the beginning of the movie. I only watched the first half an hour of the movie, but my friend watched it till the end, so the following are his comments:
- Most of the acting sucks
- Kogorou Mouri is funny
- The first part of the story is not very interesting, but the second part is good
Side Note: My Familiarity with the Series
At this moment I have read and watched:
- Death Note: The entire manga series.
- The Prince of Tennis: Around 80 episodes of the anime and up to volume 30 of the manga.
- Detective Conan: Up to volume 43 of the manga and a few random anime episodes and movies.
Spaceman-Spiff November 24th, 2006
Just saw Casino Royale today. Despite the long ending, it was a pretty good Bond movie. Definitely better than the last few ones. I like the character development, and I like how the movie doesn’t overuse technology and special effects like the previous movies. Plot-wise, it could still use some improvements.
I’m not a Bond expert, I haven’t seen a lot Bond movies, so I can’t compare it with the older movies. The only non Pierce Brosnan one that I saw and still remember is Never Say Never Again. I hope the sequel (working title “Bond 22″) won’t be a dissapointment too.
The big question I’m left with is… how the hell did James Bond manage to have sex after all that “torture”. Thought he would have to be abstinence from sex for a while.
Spaceman-Spiff May 28th, 2005
Madagascar was an okay movie. You see 50% of the funnies already in the trailers. Not much more to discover in the rest of the movie.
When watching this movie, I can’t help but picture the distinctable character voices as their voice actors instead of the movie characters. Most noticeable ones for me are the giraffe (David Schwimmer) and the zebra (Chris Rock). I imagine the lion is Ben Stiller too a few times, but not as often as those two. Everytime I heard the giraffe’s voice, I had Ross’ image in my head. I think I’d rather see animated characters being voiced by unknown (not so famous) actors, or at least actors who can change their voices slightly to fit the characters they’re playing.
I’ve been noticing that Dreamworks always uses many famous actors to voice in their animated movies, and Pixar uses less. But I find most Pixar movies have better plots than Dreamworks. The only good Dreamworks movie I can remember in the last 2 years is only The Shrek 2. Good actors don’t always guarantee good movies…
Spaceman-Spiff April 23rd, 2005
Saw The Interpreter and Kung-Fu Hustle today. I had high hopes on The Interpreter and low on Kung-Fu Hustle, but the results turned out to be different.
The Interpreter has good dialogs (and actors), but lacking a good plotline. Nothing surprising or new in the story, but it was still quite entertaining. Since I had high hopes on this movie, I was a little dissapointed at the end. It was the reverse for Kung-Fu Hustle…
When I saw Kung-Fu Hustle’s trailer a month or two ago, I wasn’t interested at all in the movie. It looked too cartoony from the trailer, and I had low expectancy for Stephen Chow’s newer movies. I love older his movies, but I find his newer ones not as funny. However, the movie turned out to be quite interesting. It’s not a complete comedy, it also has plenty of cool action (fighting) scenes. It still does look a bit cartoony in some scenes, like the Road-Runner-style chasing scene, but overall, it was very entertaining and funny.
Spaceman-Spiff February 1st, 2005
Saw House of Flying Daggers yesterday. I think it’s not as good as Hero (by same director). Too much love story and the movie doesn’t conclude well. It leaves many questions unanswered: Whatever happened to the ambush? What is the general like? Who is the Flying Daggers leader? It might be done on purpose, or maybe they’ll make a sequel of it (as my friend, Anna, claims so).
Ending argument (SPOILER WARNING!):
I think everybody (the 3 main characters) dies at the end. It seems more appropriate that way: Andy Lau’s character died alone, while the other two died “together”.
However, Anna claims that the two guys were still alive because she thinks there will be a sequel to it.
In another topic, a new Stephen Chow’s movie is coming. It looks too cartoony from the trailer. I find his new movies not so funny compared to his earlier works.
There’s another new foreign movie coming to North America: Dare mo shiranai [Nobody Knows]. It looks quite promising from the trailer.
UPDATE: After reading more about this movie, it seems that it’s a really depressing movie, just like Grave of the Fireflies. Now I don’t really wanna watch it…
Spaceman-Spiff January 26th, 2005
I finally watched Reservoir Dogs today. It’s pretty violent, but the dialogs and characters are very interesting. I’m curious to see City on Fire now, a 1987 Hongkong movie starring Chow Yun Fat, which is the inspiration of Reservoir Dogs.
In another topic, the 77th Annual Oscar Nominees list has been released. The only movie I’ve seen in the Best Picture category is Finding Neverland. I liked the movie, but didn’t think that it’s really that great. My fav movie of 2004 is Collateral. Too bad it didn’t make it to the list, though it’s nominated in the Film Editing category and Supporting Role Character category (Jamie Foxx).
For some reason I’m not that interested to see the other movies in the Best Picture category.
Raito (Light) and L both looked ugly compared to the manga. Well, more for Raito. The only character that looks good is Ryuku because he’s a CG character. Some of the acting are also bad, especially for Raito.
Where to begin… There’s so many things wrong about this movie >_< .