Movie Weekend

"One person - third row from the front and somewhere in the middle, please"

Me

"Err, say that again?"

Ticket-seller, GSC Malacca

"Okay - one for the middle seat in the third row from the front."

Me

"Siao."

Ticket-seller, thinking too loudly

Thank Hitler, the Snail-Upload-Marathon is finally over! Now I can actually write!

Question: How does a single, lonely guy spend the first weekend of his month-long vacation from Med School?

Answer: He sunk it all on movies - glorious air-conditioned theatres of magical light-and-sound! I've almost forgotten how it's like enjoying a feature film on a huge-ass screen after enduring 6 months of squinting at my microscopic laptop monitor.

A little bit of SPOILERS ahead - consider yourself warned.

The Poster of The Protégé.

Last night, I caught that new Cantonese crime flick; The Protégé. The plot is simple - Daniel Wu plays an undercover cop working to expose Andy Lau's character (and all his drug-lord-buddies). You can easily guess the rest.

But I'm of the opinion that the storyline wasn't exactly the director's main focus. Rather, I fancy that this offering was more of a documentary about the drug trafficking business and network in Asia. I read somewhere that this movie was based on the experiences of a retired undercover cop or something - so I hope the facts stayed intact through the production process.

In spite of the rather thread-bare storyline, I quite enjoyed this offering. All the characters were played very well (especially Andy Lau's drug 'Banker' and a drug-addict/single mother played by mainland actress, Zhang Jingchu). Louis Koo played his junkie/pusher/comic relief role to perfection - and impressed me the most in this entire flick. I actually didn't recognize Koo at first with his stained teeth and funky hairdo (he looked nothing like he did in the poster).

Zhang Jingchu chillin' with her pants down.

I just realised how much being a medical student have changed how I look at stuff. For instance, when Zhang Jingchu's character (above) roll down her pants to inject some heroin into herself - I find myself thinking that "it must be the great saphenous vein since she's going in from the medial side of the thigh". Frankly, I can't imagine why she didn't do it from her median cubital vein (in the arm) instead. I suppose it's just an excuse to show us viewers some hot mainland legs.

Another instance where my Med School training kicked in was when Andy Lau commited suicide by slashing his external jugular vein (or common carotid artery, I didn't look that closely). There was simply too little blood and he definitely didn't bleed enough to even faint - let alone kick the bucket. And I imagined that slashing any of the neck vessels would result in a crimson-fountain-fest, given its proximity to the heart.

One of my quibbles is the ending when Wu's character wanting to try drugs for himself because of some 'emptiness within the soul' crap. That's a load of bollocks if you ask me.

The biggest disappointment of this movie was Daniel Wu's incompetence at playing the titular 'protégé'. He should definitely stick to whoring his girl-conquering body in cheap porn;

It took me quite awhile to unearth the above picture of Daniel Wu's porn debut. Bet you didn't know anything about this.

The Protégé is no Infernal Affairs but it's definitely worth a watch for the great acting from all the stars in the film (except Daniel 'Pornstar' Wu, of course). I give it a 6/10.

Is it just me or does Daniel Wu really look like Wes Bentley.

Coincidentally, when I saw Daniel Wu on screen, I'm suddenly reminded of Wes Bentley who acted in Ghost Rider - which I wasted a good RM 8 to watch on Saturday evening.

I'm NOT impressed.

I heard crappy reviews about it. Many of my friends warned me against it. Rottentomatoes.com gave it a oh-my-god-it's-crap 27%. So why for the good of green earth did I went ahead and smelt a good two hours on this lame-fest? Good question!

It's all Nicolas Cage's fault. I had great faith in Mr. Cage's acting abilities, and to the furthest extent of my knowledge - Cage had never starred in flick that is not at least a 5/10 by my grading. Why, oh why?

But apparently, the answer is clear;


Here are some choice quotes from Eva Mendes herself (who played Roxanne/superhero-love-interest in this sh!t-flick);

"The original Roxanne was blonde and blue-eyed, but she also had huge bajoongas… I figured since I can't be blond and blue-eyed, I'll at least have her bra size."

"If I gain weight it goes to my boobs and butt. I wanted to make comic book fans happy."

Indeed, the movie was so insanely lame and boring that I found myself spending all my time waiting for the next Eva Mendes screen appearance with her 'bajoongas'. That's about all the action you'll get in Ghost Rider.

The Highlight of Ghost Rider is right there!

Besides 'Lefty' and 'Righty', Eva Mendes has absolutely no showbiz talent whatsoever (I said that when I watched Hitch, and I'm saying it right now).

The biggest asset this crap-circus had was Nicolas Cage. But instead of cashing on that, they had to have him spend half the movie without his head. And even worse - whenever Cage's character turns into the Ghost Rider, he instantly loses all his humour-value. I'm not sure whether they altered Cage's voice for the alter-ego or they actually had someone else's voice dubbed over. Either way, it's still tripe.

The one word that would best describe this movie's storyline is "turd". Cage/Blaze sold his soul to the Devil to save his dad and in return, Cage/Blaze have to be the Devil's bounty hunter. The Devil's son and his cronies wants to take over Hell and so, the Devil sent Cage/Blaze/Ghost Rider to defeat him. Constantine adapted this theme much better than this failure did. Besides, that guy who played Satan in Constantine was several thousand degrees Celcius cooler than the Satan in Ghost Rider.

The bad guy in this flick is called 'Blackheart' played by Wes Bentley. I actually snorted Coke through my nose when I first heard that incredibly lame name. As if that wasn't lame enough, they had to give him three useless sidekicks played by nobodies aligned with the classical elements of water, earth and air. The amount of lameness in this flick nearly made my head explode.

Despite having so many bad guys, the fights are amazingly unexciting. Each bad guy only took about 5 seconds to K.O. When I watch Spiderman, Batman Begins (and even Superman Returns), I was actually worried that the hero might not survive. But this Ghost Rider dude is absolutely invincible. He just march on through everything like a tank-trying-to-be-cool. I don't even want to talk about how he whooped Blackheart's infernal butt.

And that old ex-Rider guy who filled in for the Gandalf/Dumbledore mentor role for this god-awful flick - I don't even know why he bothered riding with Cage's Rider character to the last-battle location and then, turned right around and left Cage alone. I mean, why bother coming this far with him in the first place? I expected him to help in the fight, and then die to ignite Cage's inner powerz or something. This director apparently never went to directing school. Hello? Remember Chekhov's Gun?

I award this f*ck-tastically lame movie a 2/10. One point each for Eva Mendes' bajoongas.

"So the bajoongas got big: they were out of control."

Eva Mendes

I saw the trailer for this when I was watching The Protégé

This is a movie adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel, 300. Only problem is, it only hits the theatres on the 9th of March. Guess I'll just have to suffer watching it through my laptop then when I get back to India.

Wasting his vacation,
k0k s3n w4i