I heard it was very good. I understand it's a remake of a hit Hong Kong film called "Infernal Affairs" which got rave reviews too.
Lady in the Water My wish for this Christmas is that M. Night Shyamalan not be allowed to make any more movies for at least 40 yrs, or until I'm dead, whichever comes first. I just made it about halfway thru this piece of junk and that's quite enough, thankyou. This is the kind of movie you watch w/your jaw hanging open, astounded at the sheer badosity of the thing. (Yes, it's so terrible I had to create a new adjective just to describe it.) The plot device of having the fairytale (or whatever the heck it's supposed to be) told bit-by-bit by one of the characters is like a parody of poor exposition and the tale itself (with "farks" or "narks" or some such something) is lame. The attempts at humor are clunky and embarrassing, the special effects suck, and the characters are shallow stereotypes, except for Bryce Dallas Howard, who is given absolutely no character to play at all. Please, somebody stop Shyamalan before he commits another movie! H
Ong-bak. Without question, the most remarkable martial arts film, i have ever seen , bar NONE. A lot of people dont like subtitled (dare i say foreign) films, personally, i find it distracts you somewhat from what you know perfectly well, is dreadfull dialogue and allows you to focus on the context, and that's a GOOD thing, given the execrable dialogue of so many english language films. In this film, that doesnt matter a toss, story, what story? There was a plot?????????? No, no such thing. Just UNBELEIVABLE, RIDICULOUS action start to finish, things i didnt even realise were possible; I have studied a lot of martial arts, not in physical depth sure, these things tend to stop at the limit of ones own abilities. I always understood, most countries had their own varieties of unarmed & armed combat, from mongolian wrestling, to african or gaelic stick fighting, kung fu to pengsat silat, from greco roman to krav maga, from all corners of the globe, very concentric fighting arts are identifiable, and they all share such common themes as should make any "qualified" exponent of any of these arts blush with embarrasment, that they were unaware of methods they hadnt seen before. What does this have to do with this movie? Not much actually, except that like so many "asian " martial arts, their is still a western, "guy in the street" perception that traditional asian martial arts are stylised to an unusable degree, or dont work, etc. Well, they dont, as such, but....... Remarkably, these same people have forgotten their heritage of spear, sword, staff and stick fighting, the spanish did'nt invent espada ya daga, it was around long before that, and the forms of brazilian jujitsu existed well over a thousand years ago, in most parts of the globe. True. Ok, getting way off topic here, this is a kick ass movie,best ive ever seen, martial arts wise. I have the behind the scenes dvd version, and the out take's and behind the scenes stuff is far more gruelling than the movie itself, it is just ridiculous. Worth getting, worth seeing, on action alone, 4.5 out of 5 stars, from a martial arts film buff, in this genre, best ive EVER SEEN.
The BEST martial arts film EVER, in case anyone missed that. Its so good, i can' t even describe it. Yes, that good. see it.