Monthly Archive for January, 2008

Still in Shanghai. I watched a cou­ple movies in the­aters re­cently. I men­tion “in the­aters” be­cause here in China, any movie play­ing in the­aters can be bought on DVD, some­times even legally. Unlike the­aters in the U.S., movies can have dif­fer­ent prices. If I re­mem­ber right, they range from about 30 RMB to 90 RMB (about $4 to $12 USD). It de­pends on the time of day, how long the movie has been out, and the movie’s pop­u­lar­ity. Oh and I find the seats way more com­fort­able than the ones at the the­aters back home (California).

The Warlords /​ 投名状
Wow this was one crappy movie. Takeshi Kaneshiro can model but he shouldn’t act. You can take any of his scenes from this movie and turn it into a fa­cial cleanser com­mer­cial. The bat­tles were bor­ing and looked fake, and the mu­si­cal score was a ripoff of Pirates of the Caribbean.

The Assembly /​ 集结号
Pretty good. This movie is about a sol­dier who fought for the Chinese Communists against the Nationalists, and later the Americans in Korea, but it re­frained from por­tray­ing any side as good or bad. It’s sim­ply one guy try­ing to get his de­ceased brethren the recog­ni­tion they de­serve. The bat­tle scenes were first rate, like Saving Private Ryan, Flags of Our Fathers, etc.

That’s all for now.