Fighting alongside Liu Bei are his three formidable generals – Zhang Fei (Zang Jinsheng), Guan Yu (Ba Sen Zha Bu), and Zhao Yun (Jun Hu). He asked his military strategist Zhuge Liang (Tajeshi Kaneshiro) to form an alliance with Sun Quan.

Zhuge Liang then met Zhou Yu (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and it was fun to see two brilliant minds plan on how to destroy their common enemy. Their partnership led to a successful campaign against Cao Cao’s army.

With all the action and the battle scenes, it’s a refreshing break to see beautiful female characters on the screen. Vicky Zhao or Zhao Wei (yes, Hua Mulan herself) stars as Sun Shangxiang, sister of Sun Quan. In Red Cliff II she sort of became Mulan again as she disguised herself as one of Cao Cao’s minion and went to the enemy camp to spy on them.

But the hottest one in both Red Cliff movies is Zhou Yu’s wife Xiao Qiao, who was portrayed by Lin Chi-ling. There was a long bed scene between husband and wife that, not wanting to sound prude but was just that, too long. Yes, I got it that John Woo wanted to show the couple’s passion but that was the only thing I saw from it.

Both Red Cliff 1 and 2 featured epic battle scenes composed of hundreds of CGI soldiers, who were done seamlessly. John Woo did what he does best and that’s to produce exciting action scenes. There were lots of fight sections featuring one of the glorious generals fighting alone against a mob. The fight sequences were breathtaking and choreographed well.

John Woo’s signature pigeon shots found their way into Red Cliff. But this time around Woo’s feathered friends played an important role in the movie.

Liu Bei (Yong You): Truth and illusion are often disguised as each other, Cao Cao likes to play this game, both with friends and foes.

I watched Red Cliff parts 1 and 2 in one sitting and it was worth it. It didn’t feel tiresome at all. Although the movies are more fiction than historical facts, it does provide people with little knowledge of Chinese history some insights of how the Battle of Red Cliff went down. Plus, you get to know a lot about ancient warfare from them.

Red Cliff is worth watching. In case you don’t know, I don’t usually like period movies but this is an exemption. It has everything you want from an action movie and more.

This is where he met Frankie (Laura Vandervoort) who introduced him to Reno (Walton Goggins). Reno then introduced him to the world of underground street fighting. At first he didn’t want to do it. But he changed his mind after his victim’s widow, Veronica (Lynda Boyd), demanded that he should shoulder her daughter’s heart transplant.

To be honest, I’m a big Stone Cold fan. I still wear my Austin 3:16 shirts from time to time and sometimes wish I could knock out my annoying neighbor with a Stone Cold Stunner. Damage managed to bring out the best in Steve Austin to produce a decent action movie.

Don’t expect a complex plot from Damage. It’s all about the fight sequences, which are enjoyable but after some time you’ll feel that everything’s the same. Stone Cold didn’t do any of his signature moves, although I remembered that he speared a guy in one of the fights. His special move in Damage is a powerful punch that can break the ribs of his opponents.

I did felt that Veronica the widow was a bit selfish and put too much pressure on John, especially after learning that he killed her husband on self-defense. Reno the hustler was a more likable character than her.

It is good to see Smallville’s Kara in a movie. Laura Vandervoort is cute and that’s all she needs to do on screen. She was enjoyable to watch and hopefully in the future she gets to have a role that will stretch her acting skills.

Damage provided all the right ingredients for a good, old-fashioned action movie. It just proves that a movie doesn’t need expensive CGI to be entertaining. It also had funny moments. The running gag with his parole officer was hilarious. If you like action and some comedy then you’ll enjoy Stone Cold’s Damage.

Fast forward to the present and he ended up working in the family restaurant of his brother’s master. The restaurant is now run by the daughters Shen Qing (Cherrie Ying) and Ying (Ai Kago). He also brought Ken (Vanness Wu) under his wings to be his apprentice.

Let me start with Kung Fu Chef’s good point, which are its fight sequences. It was nice to see Sammo Hung doing old school action. The scenes were just right, without the blood and gore that most action movies these days usually have. They were well choreographed and enjoyable to watch.

But that’s the only thing Kung Fu Chefs has to offer. Like old-fashioned Chinese movies, it has a weak plot and is purely driven by revenge. The first half has a solid storyline but they had to put in the cooking part of the story and this is where chaos began. It was as if the channel was changed from an action movie to the Iron Chef. Even the set of the cooking contest came straight from the TV show.

Editing was terrible. There were scenes where there were problems in the continuity. I’ve seen better editing from amateur short films than this. There were sequences that were irrelevant. One such example is the Kitchen Musical where Ying was throwing stuffs to Ken and the other staffs were banging on things to create a beat.

All these mistakes are easily dismissed whenever Ai Kago or Aibon of Morning Musame is on screen. Her saccharine sweetness is overflowing that she can easily overshadow Vanness Wu’s presence. Well, that’s her effect on me.

I’ll add Kung Fu Chefs in my Could-Have-Been-Great list. It lacked the humor of Kung Fu Soccer or Kung Fu Hustle. I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone but if you enjoy watching Iron Chef or Cooking Master Boy, then you might enjoy this one. And don’t be misled about seeing Barbie Hsu as part of the casts. She’s not in this one.

Fast forward to a year later and Danny Fisher is now a detective of the New Orleans police department and has a lovely girlfriend Molly (Ashley Scott). Everything seems to work for him until learns got out that Miles escaped from prison and this is when his nightmare began.

12 Rounds is a cross between Saw, Speed and Die Hard. Miles kidnapped Danny’s girlfriend and makes him complete 12 rounds of puzzles in order to get her back. Just like in the Saw movies, Danny must complete a puzzle to get to advance to the next one.

Even though 12 Rounds doesn’t bring anything new to the action genre, it is refreshing to see an action movie with no noticeable CGI used. Not that I don’t want to see digitized effect in movies but sometimes it is good to see action stunts, car chases, big explosions and fight scenes done the old fashion way.

Det. Danny Fisher (John Cena): I’m training the world’s most dominant pug. He’s going through a bulking phase.

It turned out that Miles planned everything not as revenge but to steal the treasury mints. Kidnapping Molly is just ploy to divert the attention from the real target. Miles could have done the perfect crime but Danny was there to foil it.

I didn’t know Molly could fly a helicopter but she did. Anyway just as the bomb was set to go off, Danny and Molly managed to jump off it into a swimming pool. The helicopter exploded with Miles still in it.

If you are an avid action movie fan, then 12 Rounds is just right for you. I was entertained by this one and will probably watch the next John Cena if ever WWE Films would still produce one in the future.

Kim Hyun-joon (Lee Byung-hun) and Jin Sa-woo (Jung Joon-ho) are best friends. They are the top of the class in military training and were recruited to join the NSS, where they became its top agents. And like any other Korean drama, a girl must get in the way of their friendship and this is where Choi Seung-hee (Kim Tae-hee) comes in.

IRIS is a suspense thriller that takes its audience through a twenty episode rollercoaster ride. It managed to keep the audience coming back for more but I do find the flashbacks to be tedious, except for scenes with Tae-hee in it. The cut scenes keep on doing flashbacks in my head. I hope Season 2 has fewer flashbacks.

IRIS tackled the unification of Korea and the North-side actors and actresses did a splendid job. Special mention goes to Kim Seung-woo as Park Chul-yung and Kim So-yeon as Kim Seon-hwa. Big Bang’s TOP was featured as an IRIS assassin but his role is as forgettable as his acting.

The action scenes were great and this is the first time I’ve seen such special effects in a Korean drama. From episode one up to the last episodes, the action sequences got my attention. I was apprehensive how they can infuse a romance into the plot but they did a good job with the love square.

I don’t know what will happen to the upcoming IRIS movie because one of the leads died in the mall stand-off and another died in the last episode. If it will just be a movie adaptation of the series then I don’t see why it is necessary at all. But if it’s a bridge from the first season to the next one, then I’m up for it.

IRIS might be a groundbreaking drama in Korea but Hollywood has already given  us dramas such as 24, Alias, CSI, just to name a few. Overall, IRIS is good although it could have been better if the ending was not as crappy as the one it had. I don’t know what the writers were thinking when they wrote the ending.

In case you don’t know who Zoe Bell is, she’s did the stunts in Kill Bill and played herself in Tarantino’s Death Proof.  She top bills in Angel of Death and while she wouldn’t be expecting any acting awards in the future, she proved to everyone that she can kick ass.

Zoe Bell is Eve, an assassin.  After being stabbed in the head and had it removed, she starts seeing the image of a girl she killed during her last job.  The ghost is telling her to go kill everyone in the mob.  The plot is simple and direct to the point.  Anyway you’ll be watching Angel of Death for the action and not for the story.

If you’re a fan of action movies, then Angel of Death is definitely for you.  The fight scene will let you forget about the movie’s bad dialogues and acting.  Zoe Bell is no Uma Thurman but she threw the right punches in this one.

Batman did well playing John Connor but Marcus (Sam Worthington) is the star in Terminator Salvation.  He’s the cyborg who thinks he’s still 100 percent human.  The first part of the movie explained how he became a robot.  At first glance I thought he was WWE’s Randy Orton and was waiting for him to do an RKO.

Some people felt it was cheesy for Marcus to have a love interest.  They say that the Blair Williams (Moon Bloodgood) made the story predictable.  I have to agree with them but then again I’m not complaining to see a beautiful girl in the screen.

Marcus Wright (Sam Worthington):  What is it that makes us human?  It’s not something you can program.  You can’t put it into a chip.  It’s the strength of the human heart.  The difference between us and machines.

John Connor goes into SkyNet headquarters to rescue Kyle Reese.  He succeeded in that task but was met by Governator along the way.  Marcus comes to save him but not before he sustained a critical injury.  They managed to blow up the building but John needs a heart transplant to live.  Marcus offers his heart to John Connor. Isn’t that sweet?

I think it’s appropriately titled because T-3 killed the franchise and Terminator Salvation salvaged it . But fans wanted more.  What they got was a good action movie and not a Terminator movie.  Maybe they don’t want to see a CGI Governator and want a wrinkly Arnold Schwarzenegger to reprise his role again.  Please I don’t want to witness that in the big screen.

The opening credits showed how Wolverine and Sabertooth fought alongside each other through various wars and finally got themselves involved with Stryker’s group.  It was hinted in X2 that Wolverine had a violent past but X-Men Origins: Wolverine shows that Wolverine was the saint and Sabertooth was the evil one.

Aside from Wolverine and Sabertooth (Liev Schreiber), X-Men Origins features other mutants such as John Wraith (Will.i.am), Blob (Kevin Durand), Bolt (Dominic Monaghan), Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), Agent Zero (Daniel Henney), Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) and a young Cyclops (Tim Pocock).

As much as I love seeing all of them in the movie, it felt like they were there just to please fanboys like me.  In my opinion Gambit was underutilized by the writers.  Where was he when Wolverine was rescuing the other mutants from Stryker?

Logan (Hugh Jackman): I thought you were the Moon and I was your Wolverine.  Turns out you’re the Trickster, and I’m just the fool who got played.

The love story of Logan and Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins) felt like it was forced into the story.  We find Wolverine in a cabin with Kayla.  There was no background as to how they met or why they fell for each other.   Oh yeah, she did have that power of persuasion that can make anyone for her including Wolverine.  Her death was an important element of the plot because it made Wolverine seek revenge just to find out that she’s not dead yet.  She will be in the end though.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine sugar-coated Logan’s violent past.  It failed to show what his relationship with Sabertooth was all about.  Other mutants were more interesting than Wolverine.  He was lucky to have his memory erased in the end.  I wish the same would happen to me after viewing the movie.

Red Sands is about a squad on patrol in the middle of the desert.  They set camp at an abandoned house and during a sandstorm a mysterious woman (Mercedes Masohn) came out of nowhere.  This is when weird things start to happen.

Red Sands was supposed to be a horror movie but I didn’t find anything scary about it.  A djinn was the feature monster of the movie yet the CGI was so bad that the genie in Disney’s Aladdin could have played the part better.

If you don’t want to waste your time then don’t watch Red Sands.  The story is boring and there’s nothing that can give you goose bumps.  It felt like it was rushed and incomplete.  If a genie can grant me I wish, I wish that I forget watching this movie.

The Legend of Chun Li tells the story of a young girl with exceptional martial arts skills.  She trained with Gen (Robin Shou), in the hopes of saving her father from the hands of Bison (Neal McDonough).  Gen was an old man in the Street Fighter game but in this movie he was a middle aged man.

Bison has his minions do all his dirty works for him.  Among them are Balrog (Michael Clarke Duncan), Cantana (Josie Ho) and Vega (Taboo).  Yup, Taboo played Vega who was supposed to be a handsome narcissist and well, Taboo is not.  I don’t know how he got the part.  Maybe he Boom Boom Pow’ed someone for it.

Chun-Li (Kristen Kreuk): No wonder you wear a mask.

Another character I don’t like from Legend of Chun Li is Charlie Nash played by Chris Klein.  He looks like he came from Keanu Reeves School of Acting.  I just can’t take his character seriously.  It’s as if he was forced to take this role or something.  The Nash character is trying to capture Bison and helping him is Detective Maya Sunee (Moon Bloodgood).  Now this girl looked more like she belongs in a Hooters bar than being a police officer.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li had the potential of being a great movie but it was given to the wrong group.  If only Marvel buys Capcom so that we could get a decent Street Fighter movie in the future.