Last week's Video Games Live Concert was great. Although I was a little bit disappointed. Maybe I have been overly excited about it too much that I have looked at all the concert footages in youtube that robbed me of all elements of surprise. Nevertheless, I think the show put their best stuffs at the beginning, not the end, including the MGS and Zelda. The Mario stuffs need to be revised, they need to add tunes from Super Mario 64 (especially Dire Dire Docks theme). ... and Square Enix, what's up with not showing gameplay footage? as for lineup: how about some Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Chronno Trigger, Castlevania, fighting games (SF, Tekken) stuffs? But the highlight of the concert includes seeing video game pianist Martin Leung perform (it was Awesome!!!) and seeing vertexguy performing Contra jungle theme (one of my all time fave) live for the very first time. Koji Kondo, the composer of Mario, Zelda and almost every Nintendo stuffs out there was there and performed too, which was cool (although his performance was kinda off, but nvm). Overall, it was cool, but I wouldn't attend another one unless there's significant new materials.
After the concert was over, I went to Metreon IMAX to watch 300 with a bunch of Spartan friends (ie. San Jose State University students). As I said earlier, my expectation was low for this movie, I wasn't impressed by the hype. However, it turns out to be a good movie. Although, the story is familiar, there was enough substance by the acting and visuals to keep the story going. Props to director Zach Snyder. He is a talented director who also knows how to tell a story besides delivering good looking movies. His previous movie, Dawn of the Dead remake, was also surprisingly good and efficient horror that defied my low expectation. So, Zach Snyder, bring on Watchmen. For the score, 300 gets a solid 3.5/5
300 has been all over the news since its last week box office success. Apparently, it's happening all around me too:
- MSN nicknames full of references about the movie, especially from my "Spartan" friends
- a sudden rise in "Spartan" pride, again, among my "Spartan" friends
- girls liking the movie for different reasons, for example, Tintin never stops talking about the Spartan warriors' body display (which made me consider this movie some kind of gay parade). My sister never stopped gushing over her idol since Dracula 2000, leading man Gerard Butler.
I also finally watched Johnnie To's latest film "Exiled". It's kind of a pseudo-sequel to what many critics and fans consider his best film ever, "The Mission" (1999). It even reunites most of the cast members of "The Mission" including Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Roy Cheung and Johnnie To's regulars Lam Suet and Simon Yam. Expectations run high ... so high, it 's ultimately bound to be disappointing.
One reason why I love Johnnie To's late 90s/early 00s films is because he could successfully deconstruct the whole Gangster/Killer/Guns/Brotherhood Hong Kong film genre successfully, adding his touch of uber-cool style and ironic sense of humour to make them great without making them another worthless entry to the genre. So while father of the genre John Woo started his downslide in Hollywood with MI:2, Johnnie To was keeping HK film industry alive with good films like "Running out of Time", "A Hero Never Dies", "Fulltime Killer" and the aforementioned "The Mission". Now, why am I saying all this? Because in some ways, "Exiled" is like Johnnie To's deconstructing his earlier genre films that I mentioned. It is filled with the same cool shootout moments that as well as absurd, ironic moments of comedy that you would expect from him. Sometimes, it feels so exactly familiar that I swear it's as if the master himself is playing a game with you. However, unlike his better films, his cool shootout actions are hard too watch because most scenes are too DARK and the usual ironic humor is mostly flat. The all familiar premise doesn't help either. So in the end, it wasn't much of a good movie at all.
Johnnie To is still active making movies. However, after this film, I can't help but feel that we won't see anymore likes of "The Mission" from him. This film feels tiringly familiar, it's as if Johnnie To has no more plans to make anymore films like this and deliver this film as the "greatest hits" to his fans. While I am confident Johnnie To can still make good films, I shall miss those films that made me his fans in the first place. Exiled score: 3/5.
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My schoolmate in Singapore Evelyn just moved to Sunnyvale from LA and she just found a job here too. I'm gonna see her sometime this week and catch up.
This week's movie lineup looks weak, so I'm gonna catch some leftover like Black Snake Moan or Zodiac or maybe newly released The Namesake. or I could continue my Zelda Twilight Princess. or read The Game by Neil Strauss that Eric lent me.
... and oh, is anyone interested in Damien Rice's Concert in Oakland at April 28? let me know
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