altersaege Epic, of a slow burn kind of epic which does not rely on empty coolness. Unnecessary long, but which I did not regret having seen (while I would like to get back the time lost with the super cool, super empty, super onanistic exercise of style of Hateful Eight). It has does not excel in any aspect, it is no unforgettable masterpiece, but it touches all the right chords, with its imperfection, with its mah moments, but steadily, with no hurry, no noxious Hollywood bullying narcissistic superiority.Do not let you fool by the synopsis. This is no "Taken" (thanks God!). It is not "if you will not let my son go I will find you and I will kill you". There is no trace of the typical American megalomaniac testosteronic super-cool hyper-heroism. There is just "an ordinary citizen", who totally ordinary is not. Because he can teach a few values, although he is an ex gangster.And I am not old enough to complain about the society of "today". But I felt it very real, his complaints, the portrait he gives of our empty times...I am having a hard time finding good movies. Stupid comedies, depressive drama, empty boom boom, hyper-sentimental moralistic bonbons, hyper-sadistic horrors, hyper-intellectual blabla... It seems that our society faces a severe lack of contents, and must put loads of extra sugar, extra salt, extra oil and energy, following the motto of Advertisings, "if you have nothing to say, say it loud".Whatever I watch, it is boring. This was not.

BasicLogic A so-so movie about some Chinese old farts who failed to adapt themselves into the ever changing, rapidly deteriorating environment and social structure in China, especially the horrible turn-out of Beijing. This film signed up the famous and controversial director as the leading character, an old fart that got nothing to do everyday, but hold and hanging a bird cage, walking around to deal with some injustice happened daily in that part of the Capital. An old fart who had a dark background and history when he was young, a widower with a rebellious son who didn't respect at all but despise him. The animosity and misunderstanding between father and son finally clashed and tested when the young one involved in a trouble, and his old fart father had tried to solve it with his old but die-hard rigid moral principles originated from his mobster time when he was young.The whole movie was stretched too long just for the purpose of allowing these Beijing old farts to deliver some wise-cracking dialog that made the old Beijing people so self-important and so self-pompous, considering themselves a notch higher than the other people living outside of the Capital city. The wise-cracking dialog had stretched so thin that sometimes really needed your patience to sit tight to watch. The storyline and the scenarios involved lot of unnecessary sub-plots to patch up the whole somehow very hollow and weak story. It totally relied on this actor/director to deliver most of the pointless dialog. At first, the leading character gave you an impression that he indeed could talk the talk and walk the walk, but then, suddenly his obnoxious attitude and his toughness surrendered to his physical conditions, with heart disease. An old fart, tough with his mouth but scared to death to surgery and the small scalpels to be used in his surgery.The storyline later turned out to be more ridiculous when he tried to meet the gangsters from the other side. So pretentious gestures in his preparation before the final encounter: shaving his hairs, putting up an old green military long coat, long boots and then, taking out a Japanese Katana, riding a bike through the Beijing streets, with an escaped ostrich aside all along.....These, are all parts of the prolonged to the extreme unnecessary scenes, so overly contrived to certain unbearable limit. And then, what we got is nothing but mucho thunders, not even thunderbolts, albeit rains.This movie is just too Chinese to be appreciated by any other country's viewers. Even to the Chinese who did not grow up in Beijing would have a quite tough time to sit through the whole nine yards if the dialog in Chinese didn't keep interpreting with ( ) to make them understandable. A very contrite and pretentious, sometimes even quite shallow movie. Not too bad, but definitely not great either. Watchable, but need some patience to sit through.

Vivian Zhu This is a movie that has nostalgia written all over it. It utilizes elements of the traditional Chinese culture and combines it with modern issues. Essentially it is a tale of redemption between a neglectful father and a broken son, of how people we put down can have their own big story and of how modern society lacks the "rules" that define our actions. The themes in the movie were intriguing (corruption, old gangs...), the premise of the story was promising but it just wasn't a well told story. The scenes dragged, the dialogue felt flat at times and all in all the movie easily lost the audience. This could be blamed on the unnatural pauses in the story telling, the weird cuts and mis-en-scene as well as the out of place soundtrack. It felt like the team behind this movie was pushing the 'artsy' tones a little too much and it all came out forced and fake.A good film drags the audience in, makes the audience empathize and feel every raw emotion of the characters. In this film, the character I was moved by one character and it happens to be an unnamed ostrich. Jokes aside, the only female lead was played wonderfully by Xu Qing, the character worked because her actions felt real. The title character Mr. Six was played well by leading man Feng Xiaogang, but I couldn't help but feel he was 2D at times. With cinematography of this standard, and this type of storyline the movie could not possibly attract the attention of the younger population. So, it decided to cast two of the hottest young actors, Wu Yifan and Li Yifeng. Voila! Teenage girls will go crazy! There's one down side though...they can't act! Wooden expressions, awkward delivery...sometimes the performances bordered ridiculous. Yes, there were a few shining moments but all in all the younger characters were a failure. Heck, they even got one of the most popular "teen idol" groups to make a cameo! What happened to movies being about acting... The take-home message here is that this is a great idea squeezed inside a small container, it tried to be personal, but it wasn't, it tried to be epic, but it wasn't that either. It seemed like the ending of the film tried to be both...it ended up making me want to retreat into my seat and never come out again.

er-24005 Not an action movie by any means but an interesting drama concerning traditional values versus new free-market attitudes seen from the perspective of an older criminal element trying to deal with the new-money, corruption-based variety.The movie does a nice job of showing community life in the laid back old hutongs that still exist in Beijing and while the plot is a little slow it develops well. Since this film was designed to appeal to a domestic audience a lot of the nuance will be lost on foreigners. It emphasizes relationships, loyalty and honor in contrast to the quest for individual wealth, power and exaggerated regard of face. It also reinforces the notion that you can trust the Party to do the right thing but not the police.Some ask "what's happened to Chinese cinema?" I guess the answer is that it is booming and delivering a wide variety of product. If you want a big budget action film with lots of CG you'll find it in Mo Jin - The Lost Legend. I enjoyed Lao Pao Er more though.