Hachiko: A Dog's Story

'Hachiko: A Dog's Story' is based on a true story which can be traced back to Japan in the early 20th century. Hachiko was brought to Tokyo by Professor Hidesaburo Ueno. During his owners life Hachiko saw him off at the front door and greeted him at the end of the day near the Shiduya Station. The pair continued their routine until May 1925 when Professor Ueno did not return on the usual train one evening. The professor had suffered a stroke at the university that day. He died and never returned to the train station where his friend was waiting.

The story which is a true testament to loyalty and friendship between the dog and it's master will be well received by the legions of dog and pet owners around the world in this American remake. After 'Marley & Me' in 2008, it seems the studio is are eager to cash in on Marley's success with Hachiko. The big difference is that Marley traces the life and tribulations of a dog seen through the owner's perspective, and relates how Marley played an integral and slowly significant part in their everyday events. With Hachiko however the movie is faced with the prospect of expanding an account which occurred almost 90 years ago. As an audience I am already aware of the story which was comprehensively summarized in the opening paragraph. So how can the director fill in the gaps between the events that took place in order to create a full feature length film?

Don't get me wrong, I love dogs. I got 3 of them at home, but at some point the director seemed out of ideas on how to develop the film beyond its original material. So he chose to drag the film with an incessant dose of Hachiko run, sit, wait and jumping at the sight of Richard Gere (who plays the professor and it takes 45 mins for him to finally die in the film). We get the idea that Hachiko is a special dog, but there is only so much cute heartwarming moments one can take before it starts to really bore the audience. It isn't a bad idea to make a film about dogs, but it IS a bad idea when the lead actor is the dog itself. In Marley, we at least have Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston to give us the character elements that a Labrador could not convey with barks and whines, which as an audience can relate with. In Hachiko however, the characters in the film seemed to be there to only verbalize the obvious such as "Hi Hachi" or "Oh his not coming back anymore!"

If the director wanted a faithful reenactment of Hachiko's story, it might have worked better had they made a documentary out of it. Without expanding on the characters around Hachiko, the film just did not have anything new to offer, nor did it have enough weight on its own to engage the audience in an intellectual and emotional platform. Which is probably why the studio chose not to release the film in theaters, instead opting to release it direct to DVDs. But hardcore dog lovers will probably still enjoy the film and even shed some tears with Hachiko.

Watch the official trailer below:

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

So the Harry Potter series (movie) is coming to an end soon, its only natural that every studio and movie producer will be prospecting the libraries and bookstores for the next worthy, and profitable follow up. Many have tried (Chronicles of Narnia; The Spiderwick Chronicles) but few have succeeded. So along comes the next attempt in the form of 'Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief'. This time the irony is it's by the 1st Harry Potter movie director, Chris Columbus. So it seems like a safe bet to kick start a new franchise.

I honestly never heard of 'Percy' before the release of this movie, and it has nothing to do with age disparity. But upon reading the early movie synopsis, the similarity to Harry Potter is just uncanny. Both deals with a child who was a societal reject in the human world, discovers he is actually a demi-god (half man, half god, Poseidon to be exact) bestowing him special powers and advantage over the rest of his kind, and bears the heavy burden of saving both worlds. It sounds very much like how our schools are run these days. Anyway Zeus, the almighty God of Greek mythology lost his lightning bolt and he is convinced, without any explanation, that Percy is the thief and he gives him 14 days to find it or there will be war throughout the heavens with catastrophic consequences on Earth. Personally, I'm not too impressed by a God who can allow his greatest weapon to be stolen so easily. But guess what the biggest problem is, the world is ending and our hero needs to go through boot camp first before he can search for the lightning bolt!!!

HALLO!!!! I mean seriously, it maybe a fantasy novel but shouldn't common sense still exist? If the situation is that critical and that dire, wouldn't ALL the gods, demi or full, be mobilized to hunt for the thief, I mean its Zeus were talking about here! But apparently, the gods feel its insignificant a deal and they let a young untested teenage boy go save the world with only days to its demise. And to do so, they need to go to Hell (I kid you not) and ask Hades for advice. Oh but of course he had help from some friends in his quest to overcome his ordeals which includes the Medusa, a Hydra and Las Vegas( Resort World didn't complete in time for this production). So here's how the list looks:

Good looking hero-checked;

Hot chick-checked;

Comic sidekick-checked,

Monsters and villains that look mean but given only 5 minutes of lifespan for the sake of adding special effects and movie run time-checked

Ok, all the stereotype cast are here, we have a teenage movie!!! All we need is a theme song.

Seriously I'm not expecting 'Lord of The Rings' type material in 'Percy'. But there wasn't a single moment when I felt our hero and his gang were in any real danger. I just know that whatever they encounter, they are going to effortlessly vanquish the monster within the allocated time frame and move along. There are several ways the film could have used the medieval quest in a modern age setting to create a satirical story. But the producers chose the crowd pleasing approach and wasted the presence of several talented guests stars (Pierce Brosnan, Rosario Dawson, Uma Thurman and the hilarious Steve Coogan who played Hades dressed as a rockstar). So the quest for the lightning thief turns into a trip in the MRT with no element of surprise whatsoever, very pedestrian.

'Percy' might work for the young and uninformed audience who won't look beyond the thinner than the paper this script was printed on plotline. I honestly think Harold & Kumar had more adventure and more fun than them! Probably its a sign to say that teenage fantasy movies is not my thing anymore. I just hope the upcoming remake of 'Clash of The Titans' will fare much better.

14 Blades

When one watches the movie '14 Blades', I can bet all my Ang Pow $$$ that it is because the poster loudly declares Donnie Yen as their main actor for the film. I mean this guy has to be the hottest, most bankable actor in Asia right now. Just look at the 'Bodyguards & Assassins' poster, I don't think he is the main actor but yet he takes up the biggest space in the poster and stands right in the middle. So clearly, lots of movie studios and producers want to cash in on his namesake and hire him as the star hoping to draw audiences into the theaters, synonymous to how flies get attracted to blue light.

'14 Blade' tells the story of how Donnie's character Qing Long (Green Dragon) was trained to be a cold-blooded assassin for the Ming Emperor, a special breed of elite bodyguards. The movie started almost like 30 mins of the story has gone past, with Qing Long betrayed by an Eunuch and left for dead by one of his own comrades played by Qi Yu Wu. So Qing Long becomes a wanted fugitive and with the help of a security escort firm led by Vicki Zhao Wei, he attempts to find the traitors and seek vengeance....no sorry honor for himself. Along the way, a exiled warlord played by Samo Hung sent his highly trained assassin Tuo Tuo (literally means undress undress) to hunt and kill Qing Long, who (Samo) intends to overthrow the Emperor and usurp the throne. Oh and did I forget to mention that a band of bandits led by Wu Zun joined forces with Qing Long to destroy the traitors. And guess what is Wu Zun's character called, 沙漠判官。

If you find the story complicated, its because it IS complicated. And I doubt that was the intent. The script suffers from over exhaustion of too many sub plots and an overkill of characters that dosen't add to the progression of the main plot, which I doubt there is one anyway. But that can still be salvaged by some really cool action sequences, but even that is severely lacking here. Instead of letting Donnie do his stuff, that is cool ass kicking action they decided to do something horrifying instead. They let him ACT!!! I'm not doubting Donnie as an actor, I'm just doubting him as a non-action actor. When Donnie is not fighting bad guys, he really looks like a fish out of water, struggling hard to breath. His botoxic expression really makes it a torture to watch and at time I cringe more than I did when I was watching 'SAW'. But Wu Zun and Qi Yu Wu can both become serious contenders to be the worst actor yet. I guess the director probably wanted Wu Zun to be this cool and ruthless desert bandit, but honestly he failed utterly and ended looking more like a white version of Kumar acting as a villian. I honestly also don't know why Qi Yu Wu keeps getting roles that dosen't require him to speak more than 5 sentences in a single take, he is becoming a male 'vase' for Raintree pictures. So when I look at the casting choices, it became apparent to me that the sole marketing strategy of this film is to attract young idol audiences of the 3 male lead stars. So what has story and substance got to do with it??

If the producers had focused on the plot leading to Qing Long's betrayal they might have more material to express with. I really missed the older 武侠片 like 笑傲江湖，黄飛鸿 1 & 2. They really had such a wonderful story complemented by great actions. Here I witnessed a mediocre production with ludicrous special effects and bad acting, it was a failure from all angles as far as I'm concerned. No wonder Donnie look so indifferent throughout the film, but I guess Raintree must have paid him a hefty fee for his role. If all else fails, this 14 Blades can become an example of what NOT to do for a 武侠片, and I honestly wonder if we will ever get to see a good one ever again.