Local Romance

How did you spend your Valentine's Day?

Dinner with your someone-someone? Hang out with friends? Visiting on 5th day of CNY? Movies with family? Or in front of the laptop like foreveralone me? 

Well for the foreveraloners like me, the consolation would be to watch romantic movies (so that the movies could raise the bar of real life romance and made me have higher expectations and eventually become single for the rest of my life) with a 200g bar of chocolate at my hand. But nope, I did not watch any romantic movie on Valentine's Day. In fact I watched the romantic comedy movie the day before Valentine's. 

When it comes to romantic comedies, all the Hollywood movies like Just Like Heaven, Maid in Manhattan, Pretty Woman, The Ugly Truth, What Women Want, etc would surely cross our mind. I think Hollywood romance comedies are much overrated at some point (except for Just Like Heaven and The Ugly Truth which were very nice). So I opted for local movies instead, or specifically telemovie. 

Guess what telemovie I watched? Cik Paris Diva Kampung! Lol. 

This is a simple film with funny scripts and comical characters - and the thing that I liked the most in this telemovie was Liyana's portrayal of the main character, Zulaikha. She really portrayed the role of a spoilt brat very well until you would think that she is as divalicious as Paris in real life. 

Zulaikha (right) and her BFF Sara (Amirah Nadia) arrived at Mersing, a village somwhere in Johor. 

To summarize it briefly (with no spoiler), this movie is basically about a spoiled rich girl named Zulaikha and her BFF spending two weeks in a Malay village in Mersing just to prove to her fiancee that she is not a spoiled brat (sounds familiar? Remember The Simple Life Reality Show by Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie? That was where Zulaikha got her inspiratoin lol!)  While at the kampung, she captured the attention of a humble young man named Sufian (Izzue Islam) who eventually became her friend. Can they be together - an urban spoilt rich brat and a humble village orphan? 

Izzue Islam as Sufian. He is kinda cute but for some reason, people dubbed him as Malaysian Johnny Depp. What do you think? 

It has a simple storyline but the acting and the dialogues are very amusing. The portrayal of Sara, Zulaikha's BFF by Amirah Nadia is also very convincing. The way she speaks, ugh, gedik sesangat but very funny and amusing that I could not help but to laugh everytime she opens her mouth. If you are looking for some light-hearted local movie then you can definitely watch this. 

It is no box office but it definitely can entertain you. :)

Photos courtesy of Google Image. 

Movie-Maddening Mode

Watching movies can be named as my main activities during these past few weeks starting from the beginning of Raya holidays. I've watched a mixture of newly-released movies and also old movies.

These are the list:
(Watched in cinema)
1) Paranorman (Personal Rating: 4 thumbs up)
2) The Expendables (Personal Rating: 4 thumbs up)
3) Premium Rush (Personal Rating: 3 thumbs up)
4) Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days (Personal Rating: 3 1/2 thumbs up)
5) The Dinosaur Project (No thumb up at all... :P)

(Watched in downloaded version in laptop)
6) Accepted  (3 1/2 thumbs up)
7) Batman Begins   (4 1/2 thumbs up)
8) Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon  (4 thumbs up)
9) Doraemon movie  (4 thumbs up)

For this post, I am going to give my two cents about three movies, The Expendables 2, Batman Begins and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. These three movies are action movies but with different focuses and approaches.

 

First, I am going to talk about The Expendables which I watched at GSC cinema at Gurney Plaza. Honestly, I did not have any background knowledge about this movie as I did not follow the previous Expendables. However, it is quite easy to catch up with the plot as it wasn't that complicated. Overall, I think Expendables is a comedy action movie - light, fun to watch as you can see most of the familiar faces in action movies reunited in this movie. There's a new addition to the Expendables clan here though, if you noticed (of course you'll notice him cause he's the hottie in the clan) Liam Hemswroth who in actual life is the fiancee of lucky Miley Cyrus. However, when the movie ended, I am quite surprised to see a few of the audience in the cinema fell asleep. Either because the movie ended near midnight or because these audience are not into action movie. My guy friends who were with me said these audience were sleeping (which majority consisted of female) because girls are not really into action movies but they made me an exception because to them, I am like a guy to them (seriously?). A true lady (like me, ahem) can also actually accept the so-called guy movies. If you like The Avengers and X-Men, you will probably like this movie because of the genre it portrayed. It is action movie with comedy but not a really deep message compared to the Batman trilogy which I am going to talk about in the next paragraph.

(Personal Rating: 4 thumbs up)

 

 

Although I have a crush on Christian Bale, that is not the main reason why I like Batman. I loveeee Batman trilogy because of the actions, the storyline and the brilliant message in it. The message was deep, the dialogue was brilliant, there were a few meaningful quotes that you can find in this movie. The one that I recently watched was Batman Begins. One of the quotes that was memorable and significant here was "It's not who you are underneath, but what you do that defines you,"  a saying which I quoted from Rachel's character (played by Katie Holmes). It was a movie full of sarcasm and irony of life. I started my craze on this movie after watching The Dark Knight and more engaged to it after The Dark Knight Rises. Ironically, I watched Batman Begins last. Batman Begins's storyline is not depicted in a chronological manner. It was filled with flashbacks. Compared to Tim Burton's version of Batman, I prefer Christopher Nolan's Batman more as he gives more personality to Bruce Wayne - a true hero that doesn't really care about the fame of being one and really protective of his loved ones.

(Personal Rating: 4 1/2 thumbs up)

 

 

 

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a movie rich in Chinese culture and martial arts. From my perspective, this movie focuses into the Chinese martial arts skill more than the storyline itself because for each of the kungfu action scene, the scene was shown for quite a long time in the movie. The message that I can get from this movie is the fight for freedom and equality for the women in the olden days as portrayed by Zhang Zi Yi's character - who was forced to be married to a man whom she doesn't love, and martial arts is not gender-based, whether you are a man or a lady, as long as you're determined enough to practice the skills, you will become good at it just like what was portrayed by Zi Yi and Michelle Yeoh's characters in this movie. However, I do not really get the real focus of this story, whether it is on Chow Yun Fatt's character or on Zhang Zi Yi but I personally guess the real main character of this story is Zhang Zi Yi. She is a mix between good and bad, she has a conflict within herself in deciding which is the right thing or the wrong thing, thus the stealing and returning of the sword. It is a movie worth watching especially if you're into martial arts and Chinese culture.

(Personal Rating: 4 thumbs up)

 

 

Till then. Bye.

SECRETS FOR SALE!

"They say, a picture tells a thousand words.

But have they ever wondered, in that 1000 words, how many of the thousand are true?"

=Words of Lamehood=

Honestly, I am just a so-so fan of Singaporean drama. Only a few of Singaporean dramas could capture my attention, such as Little Nyonya, Holland Village and The Hotel. Why? Erm maybe because majority of the Singaporean drama usually revolve around money issue, family and all that cliche stuff. *Yawn*

So when my eldest sister recommended 'Secrets for Sale' drama series to me, I was skeptical to watch it. My sister told me it was very nice. I was like, "Ok, but I prefer watching movies over drama, cause I am kinda lazy to follow up the next episodes." I was hinting to her to take back those DVD that she offered to me - but she didn't get the hint (or maybe she did it on purpose :P). So I gave this drama series a chance and I started to watch them one night, and yeah, I am glad that I did. 

I finished the 13(?) episodes in just 2 and a half day. It was very addictive.

Just like the theme in this series which revolve around honesty, trust and prejudice, I shouldn't judge this drama merely based on my own prejudice ideas about Singaporean dramas. After I watched it, I think that I really like the dialogues and the characters in this drama, especially Ren Yi's character, which was the character played by Christopher Lee.

 

This is the theme song in this movie, which I began to like. :) Catch Christopher Lee, Jesseca Liu and the other famous Singaporean stars in this series. :D

A LITTLE synopsis about this drama. 

The story started with Jia Qi (played by Jesseca Liu) and her sister's family on vacation at Malacca. Jia Qi's brother in-law received a phone call, thus he went off while his wife, Jia Qi's sister followed silently behind, because she suspected her husband was having an affair with another woman, thus leaving Jia Qi with their two little boys. Out of the blue, someone took the two boys away, and all the family members disappeared except for Jia Qi. 

The story was fast forwarded three years later; depicting Jia Qi's occupation as a private investigator (PI). During one of her task, she dropped her DSLR camera (ouch!) on someone's car, and that someone happened to be Ren Yi (Christopher Lee). First meeting, and they had very bad first impression of each other.

Ren Yi and Jia Qi met for the first time in the first episode.  Not a very good first meeting though.

photo source: here

Due to Ren Yi's jobless state and his very good photography skill (he was an award winning photographer but due to an unfortunate circumstance, he was maligned and he couldn't work in any related fields due to his bad reputation), he was finally hired by Jia Qi to work for her PI firm. He was given a three months probation period, mainly because Jia Qi could not really trust him at first.

Despite the ongoing arguments between the two, they actually had chemistry, and subsequently they were impressed with each other once they knew each other better but both were very ego and could not accept the reality when they realized they had feelings for each other. But this story did not only revolve around these two and their romance but much, much more than that.

Jia Qi and Stanley in one of the later scenes. 

 Photo source: here

Plus, the appearance of Stanley (played by Thomas Ong) in the picture, as Jia Qi's long time sweetheart, made the storyline became more and more interesting.

Secrets for Sale - Pictures are not always the best evidence as one can frame others through an angle, for example, like the photo above. XD

Photo source: here

This story is one story which could play with my emotions where I was laughing like crazy at the beginning and cried silently towards the end of the series. If you think you can control your emotions very well, I challenge you to watch this.

One of the lessons that I inferred from this story is that sometimes evidence is not the only way to seek for the truth but it is your instinct which plays a greater role in identifying the truth. And another thing I learned from this series is that no matter how long you know a person, that person is not necessarily trustworthy. Sometimes, the person whom you never suspects could be the culprit causing all the troubles to you.

Okay, before I spoil the surprise, I better stop right now.

To know more about this series, check this page out. :)

 

Palm & Popcorn Sunday with Talentime... !!

It's Palm Sunday, so happy Palm Sunday to all ye who art Christians!! So today, after going back from the Palm Sunday Mass, I followed my sister and her friends to the Cathay because of their spontaneous decision to watch a movie. They decided to take a look at one last movie before the study week and concentrate fully on the exam. Actually, we were thinking of watching Shinjunku Incident, a movie starring Jackie Chan, but alas, the movie started at 11 am, so we were not in time to watch the movie. We watched a Malaysian movie instead, Talentime - which started at 11.15 am, and the movie was directed by the famous Yasmin Ahmad. As what we all can expect, only 5% of the seats are taken inside the cathay. Ha, cold feedback from us Malaysians towards Malaysian movies, huh.. But the good thing about this was that, no intervention of annoying heads from the front seat's audience.

And ahem, for those who have not watch Talentime yet, and is intending to do so, please do not read on what I am going to type because I am going to make a review about this movie, and yes, the ending is included..

Two of the three main casts in this movie, Pamela and Mahesh.

As usual, we all know that Yasmin's movie always attract controversies, so this movie was no exception (A good reason why you should watch this movie.. *wink*).. Sad but true, what she was trying to portray in this movie was the Malaysians' reality. The story revolves around the lives of Melor, Mahesh and Hafiz. Melor is a 19 year-old mixed Malay girl (Eurasian) and is played by Pamela Chong,24, (Vince's (AF1) sister, no wonder she looks familiar!!), Mahesh is a 17 year-old Indian guy played by Mahesh Jug al Kishor (just 18!!), also a newcomer in filming industry like Pamela, and Hafiz is a 16 year-old Malay student played by Shafie Naswip (who starred as Mukhsin in her previous award-winning film). One of the teachers in the high school, Adibah Noor, is producing a talent show called Talentime, to discover the talents among the high school students. So, all the students, including Melor and Hafiz were joining the Talentime audition and (surprise, surprise, rolls eyes) as we can predict, the two of them were among the chosen finalists. Ah, one thing which I like about this movie were the songs. The songs sung by Melor and Hafiz during the audition were awesomely nice, man..

I am sooo gonna download them !! Urm, after exam, of course.

Hafiz (upper pic) and Melor (lower pic) during the Talentime audition..

So, the seven finalists for the Talentime need not to worry about their transportations to the rehearsals because there were male students with motorcycles who were being assigned to fetch them to and fro from the rehearsals. And by fate, Mahesh was assigned to fetch Melor to and fro from the rehearsing place. The first time Mahesh was supposed to fetch Melor, he could not make it because his uncle was dead on the day of his supposedly wedding due to the misunderstanding with his neighbour. His uncle was going to be married the same day his uncle's neighbour was having funeral. So, I guess, they are more satisfied with funeral in both houses which took place eventually. Melor, who was extra careful about her appearance that day because she thinks that Mahesh was kinda cute (girly laugh, eheks), was fetch by the teacher of the school instead.

Mahesh and Melor on the motorcycle. This photo done no justice to Mahesh because he's actually a good looking Indian actor... ;)

Then, at first, when Mahesh started to fetch Melor, he seems to be very quiet, and Melor thought it was due to his uncle's sudden death. Then, it began to irk Melor because he did not respond to her thank yous and her greetings. She was irritated until one day when Mahesh fetched her to the rehearsal venue, he was still as quiet as ever, and he threw something like a small stone to get her attention because she forgot to take her thing from his motorcycle that day, and that was her last straw. She blurted out all her dissatisfaction towards his behaviour and said that she understands that he's having a hard time coping with his uncle's death, but please, don't be rude and please answer to her greetings. She said that he ignored her greeting like a deaf person and added to him something like "Are you deaf??" and Hafiz, who was also at the scene offered her an explanation and told her that yes, Mahesh is actually deaf and mute. Melor was really stunned. She felt sorry and shameful for her insensitivity.

Sparks of romance between Mahesh and Melor in this scene.. ;)

But from there, romantic feelings began to sparkle between the two of them. Melor began to learn how to speak in silence from Mahesh. Melor recited some poem about the moon when they were to Mahesh who could read lips. But again, it's not easy in love though the feelings are mutual. A twist of Romeo and Juliet's romance came when their love was objected by Mahesh's mother, who still hold vengeance towards Malays (I am not insensitive, but I don't know how to paraphrase a race) because of Mahesh's uncle's death.

Jaclyn Victor, who played the role as Mahesh's 20-year old elder sister with her onscreen mother.

A scene showing Hafiz and his hospitalised mother (played by Azean Irdawaty)

Hafiz, on the other hand faced a lot of obstacles of his own. His mother is suffering from brain tumour and is hospitalised. He was hated by a his own friend, because he got better results in his exam than his friend, who was a Chinese guy named Kahoe. The reason Kahoe hated him was that Kahoe's father would be really mad at Kahoe if he did not get the best result in his class. And, aiyo, I mean this Kahoe's father is really impossible what. Hafiz got 100% and Kahoe also got an A --> 97%. That result (97%) is already extremely superb. My friend, Step, said that her mom would cry in joyful tears if she ever got that kind of result. Nobody taught Kahoe's father about being grateful, I guess. Ooops, kind of far from the main point already.

A picture of Yasmin Ahmad directing Kahoe (upper photo) and Kahoe with his er hu (lower pic, which I grabbed from the blog of Yasmin Ahmad herself) in case you guys wana catch a glimpse of his look and see how good-looking he is.. ;)

Then the awaiting event came. The Talentime started at 8 pm. Melor did not have the spirit to compete because of her forbidden love tragedy with Mahesh. Hafiz, on the other hand, had to face his mother's funeral because his mother passed away the night before and was not even sure if he could make it to the competition. Melor, who was the first contestant to perform could not continue to sing after she started playing with the piano because she saw Mahesh at his usual standing place, at the corner of the hall. She got up from the stage and discussed with him about their relationship status, which I guess, is finally unforbidden after Mahesh's mother realized her mistake. Hafiz, finally could make it, and he started his performance, a singing performed with guitar-playing. Kahoe, who was also one of the contestants, who realized his unfairness towards Hafiz, came onstage and played his music instrument (er hu) along with Hafiz's guitar and made the music more awesome. At the end of the performance, the two friends hugged each other. My senior was going crazy over Kahoe cause she said Kahoe is very good looking. Well, I agreed too, but I guess I prefer Mahesh's looks cause he has a humble look compared to Kahoe's snobbish look?? (Wow, I guess I can be prejudice just by looking at looks sometimes.. Hehe)

Well, the movie ended the way it started, with the scene of the empty stage and with empty audience's seats. The winner of the competition was not stated, and I guess it was not mention purposely because the director wanted to highlight about the importance of how the contestants struggle to make it to the competition, and not the competition itself.

This is one Malaysian movie which could make me concentrate from the beginning towards the end without falling asleep or even blink my eyes. It was a refreshing and awesome experience watching this movie. And, the soundtracks are really awesome.


Pilah, High School Musical..



Talentime is better!! (*=*)

[A standing ovation to Yasmin Ahmad for her contributions towards Malaysian movies..]