rebzombie reviews

Haeundae is a popular vacation spot near Busan with more than a million visitors flocking its beaches each year.  This makes it the perfect setting for the disaster movie Haeundae.  A tidal wave hits the resort city, five years after the Asian tsunami of 2004.  But what I like about the movie was that it was more character driven than most disaster movies I’ve seen so far.

It tells the tale of people who at that fateful day were in Haeundae and how their lives are before and after the tidal wave strikes.  In the beginning we see Man-sik (Seol Kyeong-gu) part of a fishing boat where one of its crew died during the December 2004 tsunami.  Fast forward to the present and he’s still blaming himself for it.  He looks after the dead man’s daughter Yeon-hee (Ha Ji-won).

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Ben Stiller is back as Larry Daley the night guard.  But this time around he has a bigger museum to play in.  I enjoyed the first Night at the Museum and Battle of the Smithsonian looked promising with all the famous characters Larry the night guard is bound to meet.

Also back for the sequel are Owen Wilson as Jedediah Smith, Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt, Mizuo Peck as Sacajawea, and Steve Coogan as Octavius.  Also featured in the movie are Hank Azaria as Kahmunrah/Abe Lincoln/The Thinker, Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart, Christopher Guest as Ivan the Terrible, Alain Chabat as Napoleon Bonaparte, Jon Bernthal as Al Capone, and Patrick Gallagher as Attila the Hun.

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Joheunnom Nabbeunnom Isanghannom or The Good, The Bad, The Weird might be the best Korean Western I’ve seen so far. Actually it’s the first one I’ve seen but it does justice to the old cowboy movies, including The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

The Good. Woo-sung Jung (The Good), Byung-hun Lee (The Bad) and Kang-ho Song (The Weird) played their parts well. It also helps that the movie took place in picturesque Manchuria where each scene is breathtaking. The movie takes us to that particular place and time for the duration of the movie. Byung-hun Lee was extraordinary in this movie and I think that casting him as Storm Shadow for the upcoming G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is a good choice.

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Everyone is waiting for the release of this sequel. When I watched it, the lines are long and the cinema is full. Who said people are scared of the H1N1 virus. There are two kinds of reactions people have with the movie. Some are delighted with it while there are some (me included) that are disappointed with what Michael Bay has done with the franchise. Here are some of the reasons why Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen failed.

First of all, I think most of Sam’s (Shia LeBeouf)  college scenes were irrelevant and could have been compressed to cut the viewing time. Although it was funny how Sam’s mom made a fool of herself, it didn’t contribute to the plot.

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I stopped watching 24 after its fourth season. I just grew tired of watching Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) go after terrorists while being chased by the government as well. I got irritated whenever I hear CTU’s phone ring. But when I saw the 24: Redemption DVD, I can’t help but put it in the player.

Redemption takes place in between Day Six and Seven. We find Jack helping his friend Carl (Robert Carlyle) run an orphanage in Africa. Jack has been served with a subpoena from the US State Department but he declined to honor it. To make things worse, the country is suddenly on the verge of a coup and Americans were asked to evacuate the country.

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At first I thought Baz Luhrmann’s Australia was a Western with cow rustlers and ranchers going at each other.  Lady Sarah Ashley (Nicole Kidman) inherits a cattle station from her late husband and the problems that come with it.  She enlists the services of Drover (Hugh Jackman) to deliver 1,500 cattles to the Australian Army.  It reminded me of old cowboy movies.

Australia became a love story when Lady Sarah fell for Drover.  Kidman and Jackman gave noteworthy performances in the movie and their onscreen chemistry was believable.  Even though she’s old, Kidman is still hot.

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Hong Kong movie Sun Cheung Sau or The Sniper is about a young cop OJ played by Edison Chen. OJ’s life as a sniper began when he and his partner stumbled upon kidnappers. Unknown to them, the elite Hong Kong Police Sniper Team is already on the scene. Because of his excellence during that first action sequence, OJ got an invite to join the squad.

Then things turn ugly as the past goes to haunt the squad in the form of former top shooter Lincoln (Xiaoming Huang). He used to be best sniper of the team but a mistake landed him in jail. Now that he’s released from his incarceration, he wants to get back at his former buddies for not standing up for him during his trial.

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