DRAGON BLADE (天将雄狮)

I watched "Dragon Blade" a few weeks back. Directed by Daniel Lee and starring Jackie Chan as Commander Huo An who is the leader of the protection squad of the Western regions of the silk road during the Han Dynasty, the Korea star Choi Siwon as his deputy Yinpo, John Cusack as Roman General Lucius, Adrien Brody as the Roman heir Tiberius and a cameo by Feng Shaofeng, this movie was quite entertaining given its rather interesting cast.

In a very cliche way, it started of in the modern day with a 2 members archaeological team led by Vanness Wu and Karena Lam who found an ancient city buried under the sand and through laser projection and satellites imaging, and managed to reconstruct an image of how the city used to look like before the story progressed into the past.

I am not a fan of Jackie Chan and guess I will never be but I always admire his amazing ability to kick butt and execute all those moves despite his age. Siwon has screen presence but his role was really minor and kind of insignificant, in my opinion. I am not sure why but I do find it a bit strange to see both American actors Adrien and John and their legion of armies in this movie. Of late, Adrien Brody seems to be taking on more baddie roles than before.

The movie ended in the modern day again with both Vanness and Karena marveling at the greatness of this site before deciding to leave the ruins as a part of forgotten history so that it remained untainted by humans. 

Commander Huo An

Yinpo

the brotherhood of the protection squad

Tiberius, Huo An and Lucius

TOTAL RECALL 2012

Today's weather - sunny

The movie with the same title "Total Recall" in 1990 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone made waves as a futuristic sci-fiction movie ahead of its times with fantastic special effects.

As I watched this remake in 2012 starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel and Bill Nighy, snippets of the original movie, such as the fat lady removing her face mask and the receptionist who changed her nail colour with the tap of a pointer, came flooding back. It is understandable that critics will compare the original and remakes to provide their reviews. Whilst the original movie scored for its originality, this latter movie did not seem to receive accolades of the same nature and fared poorly at the box office ratings.

I personally was quite pleased with this newer version. Frankly, Arnold's acting was terrible and exaggerated and it was then that I first noticed the mega-bitch Sharon Stone before she catapulted to fame with her leading role in "Basic Instinct". Don't get me wrong, Sharon was bad in a good way. Her portrayal of the Arnold's fake wife was excellent although she was killed off fairly early.

I am starting to like the bad boy Colin Farrell since last year's "Fright Night". His personal story is somewhat similar yet dissimilar to Brad Pitt in that they both good looking actors acted in a minor role in some blockbuster movies e.g. Minority Report, before they were discovered by movie agents to take on bigger and juicier roles. However, fame eluded Colin even as he acted as the "Alexander the Great" which could either potentially propel him further in showbiz or make him fade into further oblivion. Sadly, he still didn't quite make it to the Grade A leading man status with the recent movies. For me, I enjoyed his acting in recent movies and I think it is high time Hollywood give him a superhero character to play.

Then again, I absolutely adore Kate Beckinsale. I have been her fan for the longest time since her "Underworld" days. She looked so beautiful even as a villain and she was to "Total Recall 2012"  what Sharon Stone was to the original movie. Starring next to her, Jessica Biel never got a chance to shine.

I also realized that there were some links between the key characters. 3 of them Colin, Kate and Bill were vampires respectively in "Fright Night" and the latter 2 as vampires in the "Underworld" series. Even Jessica played the role of a vampire hunter in "Blade: Trinity". Did someone got them together deliberately for this movie or was this just pure coincidence?

Whatever the case, I enjoyed this movie thoroughly.