Hoho... I went to my brother's blog and read some of his reviews on 3 movies: I,Robot, Taegukgi - Brotherhood and House of Flying Daggers. Mind you, my brother is an exellent writer - even better than I am! If you have the time, do take a look at what I've copied and pasted from his blog. ;)
Oh, and before I forget, I didn't copy and paste his review on the Korean movie because it is REALLY lengthy - slightly over 2000 words (including storyline, his opinions and even a couple of quotes)! So, here you go... 2 entries of his reviews...
PS: You may not agree with some of his thoughts and opinions. Nonetheless, you might enjoy his writing style. Have fun!
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I, Robot
By Aylwin Tan
People who want to catch this show may not want to read what I've got to say now. Don't wanna spoil the surprise. All I can tell you is, it's pretty good.
Now, for the show, I gotta say it developed rather nicely as a thriller. I think this show falls under the action genre. But I think it holds about 40-50% thriller too. I'm kept guessing and anticipating what the robot(s) will try to do. And the reason for why robots attacked humans only came to light towards the end or so.
All these about machines taking over mankind comes down to a simple reasoning. Matrix, Terminator, I,Robot, etc all focus on human beings as irresponsible 'masters' of earth who don't take up the responsibility of taking care of the environment we live in. We are able to pursue such an irresponsible way of live only because we are at the top of the food chain... for now. But each of these apocalyptic-sci-fi-machine-killing-humans type of shows tell us that as soon as machines evolves to a state where they are able to look at things from a 3rd point of view, humans would naturally be categorised as parasites, bacteria, germs (as how Agent Smith would descibe human beings). We simply take things for granted. I doubt any of us respect any machines in our lives now. Just look at how some of the users treat the computers now. Not shutting down properly, knocking the system unit when it's slow, etc. Granted, I myself find it difficult to respect something like the typewriter too.
I really believe that is most probably the direction human kind is heading. Where we do R&D in AI, with the hope of simulating human emotions and reactions in machines. As soon as that state is achieved, machines WILL behave like humans. We can see that war, crimes and violence are very much a part of human history. As soon as machines starts emulating humans, what's to stop them from making this happen? NOTHING. No safety feature, no regulation, nothing can stop this. We can put in Rules to govern the way a machine thinks. But as soon as any 'living' being evolves enough, having developed reasoning, they are able to make choices; choices to do good, bad, right and wrong. They will easily develop perceptions, and each is subjected to an individual's idealogy as well as things you see, feel and experience.
My point? I dunno, but worrying about what hasn't come to passed is definitely not it. Maybe the simple answer to everything is that each and everyone one of us living on Mother Earth should start protecting respecting everything we see as though it's the last day of our lives. Nature, environment, things we use daily. (The Japanese respected their sword as a living thing.) But how many of us will do this? I'm not sure I'm able to discipline myself to do this consciously either. Maybe human kind IS doomed afterall.
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House of Flying Daggers
By Aylwin Tan
Yes yes, another movie I just caught. Seems like I'm catching movies pretty often on Suns. Not that I mind it one bit.
Not too fantastic despite some well choreographed fight scenes. But everything seems to be going the 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' way now. It's nice, but not fantastic. I think it'll only impress non Asians instead as they are still getting used to these type of martial art flicks. It's plot is simple enough. Revolves around a time when rebels were against the local govt. Basic story line is, A & B tries to trick C. B goes undercover, B and C fall in love. Turns out C is a spy, and it is a trick in the first place. A & B are captured. Story twists somemore; turns out A is a double agent. A & C used to be sweethearts. When A finds out B & C are in love, A tries to kill both. C gets mortally wounded. A & B fights a duel and both are injured. C intervenes despite injury. C threatens to kill A if B dies. A pretends to try to kill B (hoping to die in C's hands). C pretends to attack A but is unable to harden herself to do so and dies as a result of her wounds. A and B are devastated and show ends.
I tell you is a 'chim' show. Zhang Yimou kinda overdid it lah. Heard Hero was something like that. This should be a theatre work instead of a movie. 2 things I found comical and kinda stupid: A walking around with a knife in the back (literally!!). C gets a flying dagger in the chest, coughs lots of blood and collapses. It starts snowing, and she still has the strength to climb up again. Dunno what it takes for her to die lor. Maybe a nuclear warhead will do the trick.
Anyway, I'm guessing that there will be quite a no. of pple who wants to or will watch this because of 3 reasons: Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Zhang Ziyi... people, please don't waste your money. If you really have to watch it, do so when it costs $6.50.
