SAN ANDREAS

I watched this movie on my birthday in Taiwan. It was my first choice because I would prefer to watch a chinese movie while I was there but this was the only feasible choice then given the time.

Starring Dwayne Johnson as the lead Ray, Carla Gugino as his ex-wife Emma, Alexandra Daddario as his daughter Blake, Ioan Gruffudd as the cowardice real estate developer Daniel, the asian actor Will Yun Lee as Dr Kim Chung, Colton Haynes as the helicopter rescuer Joby, this was a highly unrealistic movie where Ray, a helicopter rescue pilot, went about with his helicopter and a boat to save his ex-wife Emma and daughter Blake from the killer earthquake which measured 9.6 on the Richter scale, the tsunami, and all the effects of the catastrophe e.g. crumbling buildings.

Kylie Minogue had a cameo role as Emma's sister Susan and she died together with an entire building of people, except for Emma who managed to make it to the rooftop of the building and was rescued by Ray on his helicopter before going all out to locate Blake, who was saved by a stranger Ben Taylor, who later became her boyfriend, and his younger brother Ollie, before the father came to the final rescue.

Well, I looked past how unrealistic the plot was, and enjoyed the movie for what it was - an action-packed movie.

the collapsing Hoover dam 

seismologist Lawrence Hayes and the reporter Serena

San Franciso destroyed by the earthquake and tsunami

Ollie, Blake and Ben (L to R) watched on with horror as the tsunami hit their building

Ray and Emma

INTO THE WOODS

This is a Broadway musical adapted into a movie, so there were lots of singing and dancing other than the rather exaggerated acting.

This collection of fairy tales brought together a number of characters and told some of the familiar stories that all happened in the enchanted woods in a different way from what we know of.

Meryl Streep played the Witch for the first time in her movie career, James Corden and Emily Blunt were the Baker and his wife, Anna Kendrick was Cinderella, Chris Pine was Prince Charming, Johnny Depp was the Wolf, Lilla Crawford was Little Red Riding Hood and Daniel Huttlestone was Jack and MacKenzie Mauzy was Rapunzel.

Personally, I didn't enjoy this movie at all and found all the singing grating and non-catchy or -memorable although some of the humour was entertaining.  

Meryl Streep as the Witch

the Baker and his wife, who had a brief dalliance with Prince Charming

the Cinderella who professed to enjoy house cleaning

the Prince who was raised to be Charming not sincere

the same old Wolf

the Little Red Riding Hood

Jack and his beanstalks

Rapunzel

TAICHI 2

I watched this movie about 2 weeks back, I think, and this sequel starred Daniel Wu and Feng Shaofeng on top of the earlier main cast.

I am not going into the details about the storyline but somehow I enjoyed this second part more than the first. When is the third coming out?

TAI CHI 0

I was so busy recently that I didn't manage to post much these few weeks. So here goes.

Directed by Stephen Fung and produced by him and Daniel Wu, this first part of a trilogy stars the newcomer Yuan Xiaochao, who is China's wushu gold medal winner at the Asian Games 2010, Angelababy, Taiwan's Eddie Peng, and Hong Kong's Tony Leung with cameos by Stephen Fung himself and Shu Qi.

I guess Stephen loves to make such light-hearted movies, as evident by some of his other earlier productions, but I prefer period martial-arts movies to be more serious. Hence, I wasn't quite bowled over by the story-telling although the animation scenes were quite interesting. I read quite a bit about her but this was the first Angelababy movie I watched and I do think she has a refreshing face.

Well, the second part starring Daniel Wu and China's Feng Shaofeng is coming out soon, so there is no need to wait too long for the continuation.