Rule #1 : an Asian horror at its "not so best"

salam & good day all

It's movie review time (should be doing this for some time already, since the jobless me had been watching a lot of movies lately..haha), and I'm going to start with a Hong Kong horror movie I've been wanting to watch for quite some time now; Rule #1.

Language : Cantonese
Release Year : 2008
Director : Kelvin Tong
Main Casts : Shawn Yue, Ekin Cheng, Fiona Xie, Stephanie Che

*credit to original source from  Hong Kong film poster web for the movie poster.

"These 2 man, who do you think is the cop?
They both are. The one in front is in plainclothes.
So in a world that neither black nor white, never assume"

|start of movie summary|

The movie started with a very slow (as in not-so-clever-person slow) Sergeant Lee Kwok Keung (Shawn Yue) performing his patrol inside a basement parking area, and stopping a seemingly normal harmless car driving super slowly on its way out of the parking area. Apparently Sergeant Lee noticed that the car driver is not wearing the seat belt, hence stopping him for questioning. He even produced a ticket to the driver for it for good measure. Suspecting something more Sergeant Lee went over to the trunk to further check the car and found out 1 of the backlight was not functioning for the car. While checking on the backlight, there were bloods spilled over Sergeant Lee hand, and this lead to him opening the trunk where he saw a body of young girl full with blood on it. In his shock state, Sergeant Lee didn’t notice that the driver is already out of the car and before he managed to pull out his pistol he was shot by the driver. Then he was shot a few more times, with the driver or should I say the killer taunting him along the way. Just before Sergeant Lee passed out due to the all the shots, he vaguely saw the body of the girls sitting up in the trunk and tearing up her own neck before he managed to grab his pistol and shot dead the killer out of all the confusion/shock situation. Then Sergeant Lee totally passed out.

Fast forward a few scenes, Sergeant Lee was transferred to Miscellaneous Affair Department (MAD) after the incident. Apparently it did due to him not want to change his report of seeing the body sitting up in the trunk i.e. him seeing ghost. So here, in MAD is where our hero meets Inspector Wong (Ekin Cheng) who is in charge of the department. MAD is where any cases that cannot be clearly classified belong to any other departments in the police force were handed to i.e. ranging from prank calls to over suspicious old lady and also surely, ghost matters.

And the rule number one in MAD is “there is no ghost”.

|end of movie summary|



Rule #1 has all the potential to be a very good Asian horror movie. It has all the ingredient of good typical Asian horror movie.

- Slow paced with sudden very well placed burst of pace? Sure, it is not as slow as the Japanese horror movie but still I thought for a HK horror movie, the pace of the movie is just nice. So, checked.
- Good story line? Definitely. I thought this is 1 of the movie strong point. Checked.
- Good acting? I thought Ekin Cheng was very good in his role as an outgoing chief of department. It’s not really easy watching him and not thinking of Chan Ho Nam you know, so credit to him for able to make that. Shawn Yue was decent enough, even though I do not really like his portrayal of a police officer at the start of the movie. Other than that, he did OK in my opinion. So, I checked this.
- Long black haired ghost? Sure, every Asian horror had it. Checked.
- Hot chick? Of course. Checked again.
- Twist at the end? If you let your mind into the movie without really thinking that much, you’ll enjoy the twist a lot more. Checked.

I love it when a movie does not keep you guessing too much on the main concept of the storyline. The let-the-audience-make-up-their-own-mind-on-the-story type of movie is fine with me, as long as the main concept of the story is established. And this story did that, firmly established the main concept of ghost. That is a major plus for this movie.

The twist also is very good. Like I mentioned earlier, if we let our mind into the movie storyline without much deliberating on what everything is all about, the twist is quite good.

However, my main gripe with this movie is that 1 of the major scene showed to us viewers are totally different to what actually happened as being revealed nearing the end of the movie. The incident I meant is the old school incident, the 1st scene with Inspector Wong, his ex-wife and Sergeant Lee . I just could not accept that in any movie. I mean, do all you want to add to the suspense, twist, riddle etc of the movie but never, and I mean NEVER use a false scene altogether to create them.

I know that the movie started with “in a world that neither black nor white, never assume”, but this is not us as a viewer assuming. This is the director planted a scene that never was in the storyline to add to the twist revealed at the end of the movie. And what was the function of the police chase scene at the start of the movie other than to establish the tagline as per mentioned above? A missed opportunity for this movie I guess.

With all the above being said, my overall rating for the movie is

5/10 – a strong premise for an Asian horror story with good acting but spoiled by the scene that never happened pictured as major scene and impacting the ending of the movie.

I do wonder whether we have our own MAD or not in our police force :-p

ciao.

Susuk or 4bia?

salaam all

i am a movie man. i love watching movie and talk about the movie. i love giving movie reviews for those movies that i had watched. during my uni years, i watched movie every week, at 1 time up to 5 movies a week. aahhh...the good old days when i don't have to think how to answer to every business user 'important' question.

but that was the good old times. now, i hardly have time to watch movies even once a week. there's always things to do. always plan to watch a movie during weekend, but always couldn't do it. am going to change that. i will watch movie at least twice in a month, if possible once every week. will start this tomorrow. the question for now however is, which movie i'll be watching tomorrow?

being a horror movie fans that i am, i had narrowed down my choice to 'Susuk' and '4bia'. so which 1 i should watch tomorrow (or should i say today, now already 3.44 am..heh)?

Susuk is a Malay movie about the usage of susuk in the entertainment world, generally to be successful in the said area. in another word, these actresses use susuk to make themselves look irresistible to fans and producer. main cast in this movie that i can recall is Diana Rafar, Ida Nerina (she seems to be in a lot Malay horror movies), Adlin Aman Ramli and surprisingly (in a good way that is) Sofea Jane. i watched the making of Susuk 1 night last month when i was alone at my home and it did give me the creep after that.

4bia is a Thai horror movie which i come to know only last Tuesday as i was browsing through the GSC website, originally to book a ticket for Susuk show last Wednesday which i end up did not go. 4bia consist of 4 horror stories, which bring the pun '4bia' in the movie title obviously. reading through the sinopsis in the GSC website and it seems to be really interesting. interesting enough to make me research a little bit about this movie on the net. and i even refrain myself from reading the detailed review i found on the net about 4bia. i don't know what it is about Thai movie in general, most of them generally did not failed me and my expectation

so which movie i'll choose? i don't know. will only decide tomorrow morning when i want to book the ticket for the movie. whichever 1 it is, i don't think i'm going to be disappointed :-)

it's been a while

salaam all

agak lama dah aku tak update blog aku ni. my other half dah komplen tak hengat dah bila nk update blog..hahaha. bukan aku takmau update, tapi been a bit busy these past couple of months. a lot (and i do mean a lot) of things happened these past couple of months. works (and lots of them. sian my baby), pilihanraya (Alhamdulillah for Kedah), Kedah retaining the MSL, Arsenal dumped out from Champions League by the unique combination of Liverpool being the Europe favourite son + the incompetence refereeing and me buying myself an early birthday present. tu semua antara benda yang terjadi dalam hidup aku dalam 2 bulan yang lepaih ni

semua menda jadi dalam 2 bulan lepaih yang aku tulih tu semuanya aku nk blog dalam ni. tapi takdak masa sangat. tapi ya ka takdak masa. i'll guess if i want to do it, i'll manage to find time for it. maybe i just doesn't really feel like blogging at that point of time

anyhow, aku ada mood nk blog sekarang. kenapa? sebab aku nk pi tengok wayang satgi kat Mid Valley. or as my dear baby put it, Mitveli..kekekeke. movie aku nk tengok ni tajuk dia 'Slit Mouthed Women'. daripada tahun lepaih lagi aku dah tau pasai movie ni. tapi, never ever in wildest dream that this movie will reach our cinema. sekarang dah ada kat sini, konfirm aku kena pi tengok. aku dah pi dah Khamis hari tu time cuti Hari Buruh, tapi punya la ramai orang beratoq. salah aku jugak, tak reti nak budget kata hari cuti pandai2 la booking dulu. so lesson learnt, hari ni aku booking show pukui 12.15 tengahari. which remind me, aku patutnya kena pi bersiap nk keluaq sekarang

aku akan bagi review movie tu dalam aku punya next entry. till then, you guys who might want to know the story behind the Japan urban legend that is Slit Mouthed Woman may look at below video taken from youtube. oh, especially to my dear baby, if you watch it do stop when approaching the finish. you not going to like it..bwahahahahaha