Thoughts On The Dead

Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Tag: donnie yen

Han, Solo

August 12, 2016 / / 2 Comments

 

39 of 60- Movies I screencapped
Okay, first of all: this post’s title is fucking sterling. I am proud of myself.

Second: it turns out that Donnie Yen’s character, Chirrut Imwe, is not technically a Jedi in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, but he’s Jedish enough for me; TotD hereby confers upon Donnie Yen the title of Jedi-shifu, and appoints him to the council.

So, yes: the world is crumbling like a Jenga tower in the Earthroamer; and, yes: 2016 has not even begun to shred out hearts. But Donnie Yen is playing the Blind Master in a Star Wars movie, so it can’t be all bad.

Thoughts On Ip Man 3

July 1, 2016 / / 3 Comments
  • The third one’s the shitty one in China, too.
  • Movies rarely anger me–I’ll just turn them off–but Ip Man 3 was a seemingly personalized mixture of things that piss TotD off: that Zack Snyder fast/slow bullshit in the action scenes, annoying child actors, intrusive and blatant score, and characters I hate taking forever to die.
  • Ip Man’s wife (Ip Woman) gets cancer and after 45 minutes of her moping around, I was actively and loudly rooting for the disease to metastasize faster.
  • For me, this movie’s protagonist was the tumor.
  • Don’t watch this, please; you MUST see the first two in the series, though, and that’s probably one of the reasons this flick let me down so much: I had high expectations, and that always leads to to sadness.
  • Anyway, the movie takes place in Hong Kong in 1959, and Hong Kong in 1959–according to this film as my only source–was chockablock full of greasers.
  • It was like Chinese Graffiti.
  • The Chinese version of Chekhov’s gun is nunchucks during the opening credits, and here is where I will mention for the first time the fatal flaw of this kung fu movie: there is not enough kung fu.
  • Huge stretches of the film go by with nary a windpipe being crushed, or a face being kicked.
  • There’s a bad guy and a rival, I suppose: the bad guy wants to buy the school that Ip Boy goes to, and the rival is another parent at the school.
  • Like a fucked-up PTA meeting, I guess.
  • Mike Tyson sends greaser thugs to the school and Ip Man calls the police.
  • Did I forget to mention that Mike Tyson is in this?
  • We’ll get back to him.
  • The thugs threaten the principal, but he won’t sell the school.
  • Schools work differently in Hong Kong, I guess; I do not believe principals are allowed to auction off the facilities in America.
  • I’m sure some have tried, though.
  • So the thugs kidnap the principal, and they do this by tossing a burlap sack over him in the middle of the street at lunchtime.
  • But here’s the thing: it’s not a cartoon-y movie–there’s cancer and children in danger–so the sack stood out a bit.
  • Finally, after 22 fucking minutes of not kicking, there is kicking.
  • Now we meet the bad guys, who are Mike Tyson and the most ridiculous British person on the planet.
  • Chinese audiences wouldn’t recognize how silly the accent is, but to a Westerner, it is clear that the actor was fucking around.
  • Take Jon Stewart’s impression of Queen Elizabeth and multiply it by Downton Abbey and then take the result to the Steven Fry-th power.
  • But, you know: I couldn’t tell Cantonese from Mandarin, let along regional accents from each other, so I’m not surprised no one noticed.
  • (Although it should be noted that Chinese movies do not have any of America’s (new-found) distaste towards making the bad guy a stereotypical foreigner. So far the Ip Man villains have been Japanese guys that looked straight off WWII propaganda posters, the British, and now Mike Tyson.)
  • Ip Woman gets cancer.
  • And, like, she really gets it: we got to the fucking doctor and the pharmacy and see x-rays; it takes for-fucking-ever.
  • So half the movie–fucking half!–is this cancer bullshit and the wife (who has been a wet blanket and a pill throughout the entire trilogy) is all sad and Ip Man may or may not be sad; I don’t know.
  • This is because Donnie Yen has two facial expressions, and one of them is “no facial expression at all.”
  • (The other one is “smiling awkwardly.”)
  • Then the children get kidnapped, also in the middle of the streets at lunchtime, and the scene’s shot for comedy: the Level Boss literally catches kids and throws the in a van with a cage door on the back.
  • But then he starts screaming about how he’s going to sell the children into slavery.
  • NEEDLE SCRATCH SOUND
  • Can we not bring child slavery into it, Ip Man 3?
  • Any chance we can keep it light and have Kung Fu Guy fight Mike Tyson and let me eat my popcorn in peace?
  • So, Ip Man fights an entire shipbuilding factory and then his rival shows up (there’s a lot I’m leaving out, but you don’t give a shit and neither do I) and there is some good kicking and fun punching for a while.
  • And then it’s cancer time again.
  • Why can’t Ip Man use kung fu on the cancer?
  • Kick the tumor very hard?
  • Whatever, get to the action.
  • Hey, it’s convicted rapist and Trump supporter Mike Tyson!
  • And he is speaking (a little) Cantonese (badly, one would assume)!
  • He and Ip Man fight, and I cannot lie: it is a damn good scene.
  • Here it is:
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWj2WLKwAYk
  • That’s the only part of the movie you need, and it occurs WITH AN HOUR LEFT.
  • Gonna be honest: I checked out mentally after this.
  • After quite a bit of acting, Ip Woman dies.
  • The rival, the other dad from the school, becomes some sort of kung fu hero and challenges Ip Man and then they fight and I did not care at all.
  • More like Nope Man.

Thoughts On The Rogue One Trailer

April 8, 2016 / / 3 Comments
      [embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze2kpOZx_kU[/embedyt]

 

  • This is the future that we have chosen: a new, carefully-calibrated, competently-executed Star Wars product every year until you fucking die.
  • Remember that thing you liked?
  • Here, choke on it.
  • Please note for the record that TotD was the first to declare that we have reached Peak Star Wars.
  • There is a backlash coming; a rebellion, if you will.
  • Anyway, the actual trailer isn’t a trailer: it’s a teaser trailer, but keep in mind that words don’t mean anything anymore.
  • It’s a trailer.
  • Which means–by law–it must begin with ominous piano music.
  • There is a pretty white girl in trouble.
  • She is making a very serious face.
  • Look:
  • rogue one felicity jones serious
  • That is a very serious face.
  • Also: did you know that there was mascara in space?
  • She looks like she should be smoking Marlboro Reds in the parking lot of the Mos Eisley 7-11.
  • And while she is making that face, she is completely surrounded by Star Wars.
  • X-Wings, and droids, and that dopey Tour de France-style space helmet the guy in the picture’s wearing.
  • It’s like the set was cosplaying as Star Wars.
  • You might just call it Star Warsing.
  • This trailer is the Star Warsiest thing ever, and we haven’t even gotten to the AT-AT walkers.
  • Then, Mon Mothma and a Hispanic guy show up.
  • (The Star Wars Universe has become decidedly more diverse since Disney bought the property, although the hero is still going to be a pretty white girl. Felicity Jones, Daisy Ridley, Luke Hamill: pretty white girls. Also, that the push for an integrated SWU is mostly based in added value in the global market makes no difference. Any casting process that gives me Forest Whitaker and Donnie Yen in a Star Wars movie is to be lauded.)
  • The innertubes have already begun speculating on whether the Hispanic guy is Poe Dameron’s father, because the innertubes are racist.
  • There is punching.
  • Blasters, which make the sound .
  • PEW PEW.
  • And the pretty white girl goes, “This is a rebellion, right? I rebel.”
  • Which is a dumb fucking line.
  • “This is a star war, right? LIGHTSABERLIGHTSABERYAAAAAY.”
  • Kinda blatant, is all I’m saying.
  • Back to the action: Ladies and Gentlemen, the Death Star.
  • They have made five Star Wars films and the Death Star has been in four of them.
  • That’s an 80% market penetration.
  • Holy shit: Star Wars isn’t about Jedis or the Force or any of that bullshit.
  • It’s about the Death Star.
  • Quick: someone go concoct an elaborate revisionist theory where the Death Star is the protagonist.
  • A series of shots:
  • Space Nazi in a cape!
  • X-Wing pilots running!
  • Stormtroopers patrolling somewhere dusty!
  • Forest Whitaker!
  • Wait.
  • One of these things is not like the other.
  • Luckily, Forest Whitaker is a god among men and he and his sloppy eyeball can be in every movie, as far as I’m concerned.
  • Plus, if you were on one of the seemingly-millions of desert planets in the Star Wars Universe, and you ran into a crazy person in a cave, that person would be Forest Whitaker.
  • It just makes sense.
  • I would pay to see a shot-for-shot remake of the original Star Wars with Forest Whitaker playing every part: Han, Luke, Leia, the droids.
  • Forest Whitaker is also wearing a cape.
  • We’ve discussed the cape thing.
  • This trailer is less than two minutes long, and there are a good 35 characters wearing capes.
  • And then there’s a bunch of mysterious bullshit: out-of-context shots of the bad guy, and the true, secret bad guy (can’t be Star Wars without a true, secret bad guy), and a new stormtrooper or two.
  • Running!
  • Peril!
  • Escaping!
  • AND THEN DONNIE YEN LAYS SOME MOTHERFUCKING SPACE KUNG FU ON A STORMTROOPER.
  • Perhaps you know how I feel about Donnie Yen.
  • If you need a refresher course:
  • Now: they’re not going to let him to do that, but his mere presence in the film is enough for me.
  • I got a yen for Yen.
  • He’s the biggest movie star in Asia, so it makes sense why he’s in here: China doesn’t really give a shit about Star Wars at the moment, but Disney is intent on changing that opinion.
  • It’s a bit surprising a Bollywood star or two isn’t in this.
  • And then AT-AT walkers have their grand entrance and–as is the trope–can’t shoot for shit.
  • Our Star Warriors are running, slowly and in straight-ish lines, on an open tarmac, and no one gets hit.
  • And don’t give me any of that bullshit about the Force.
  • At a certain point, one has to call the Empire’s competence into question.
  • Killing a person standing in the middle of what is essentially a parking lot should be doable by a military.
  • Hell, leave the walkers on the Star Destroyer and just carpet bomb the area for a couple days.
  • Or a machine gun.
  • One United States Marine with a rifle and half-decent position could solve this problem for you; even if they had gotten the job done, the robot death elephants are overkill.
  • Then there is more piano music, and it is very sad, and the pretty white girl is now wearing Tie-Fighter pilot armor, and if you want, you can go to YouTube and watch professional nerds discuss this fact for hours upon hours.
  • She makes another serious face.
  • Look:
  • felicity jones serious face empire
  • I sincerely hope that Felicity Jones can make more than one face.

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