Monga Movie Review

So I just finished watching Monga. I've been dying to see it after I saw the cast promoting it on Kang Xi Lai Le. It took me forever to find a copy of it because it's NOT EVEN ON YOUKU or TUDOU, which are the two Chinese sites which have everything.

The problem with this movie was that I needed to find the English subs with this because they speak Taiwanese throughout the whole video with A LOT of slang so I didn't understand a thing. I got the Mandarin parts... thank goodness but they don't speak Mandarin all that much, most of it is in Taiwanese.

I thought the movie started off pretty good. It caught my attention and it kept me watching until the end. I expected to find "great" meaning in this movie because of how the director spoke of it on Kang Xi Lai Le, but I didn't really find a strong message. There was a RELATIVELY strong theme of brotherhood and betrayal in the movie but I felt that it wasn't all that heavily developed. They had a lot of scenes that were presented only to show how much training effort they put into the "martial" aspects of the movie.

The plot is quite simple. There's a loner who has no friends and is recruited into the gang and there he finds brotherhood and loyalty. They also do this blood thing, where they cut their fingers and they drip the blood into a blood of water and they have to drink it or something, lol. So it's like... OFFICAL that they're brothers. The head of these brothers, his name is Dragon, so Dragon's dad is like the Big Brother of all the gangs in the Monga area, like no one messes with him, lol. Mosquito is the name of the loner guy who got recruited. Monk is like Dragon's really good friend and they're super tight. There's a guy named Monkey and another dude... I forget his name but it's probably something ridiculous as well. So Monk finds out that Dragon's dad once ordered someone to chop off his dad's arm so that he could be the BIG BROTHER. And every time Dragon does something wrong, Monk always gets punished for it.

So then eventually, Monk gets invited by this other gang to kill Dragon's dad so that they could expand their gang business into Mainland China. Dragon's dad's against expanding into China, he wants to keep Monga in Taiwan only. So then Monk kills the Big Brother. And obviously, now that the Big Brother is gone, havoc spreads like wildfire. And the 5 brothers plan to go to the Philippines until the insanity dies down. Oh and NONE of the brothers know that Monk is the one who kills Dragon's dad.

And Mosquito, who is so loyal to the gang, wants to seek revenge and kill the person who kill Dragon's dad.

And basically that's it. Mosquito eventually finds out that Monk is behind all this. And I think the sequence goes like this in the final scene:

-Mosquito is stabbed in the leg with a knife from a fight and he's limping around with it, trying to chase Monk

-Monk hides and sees Mosquito coming after him and he shoots him

-Just as Mosquito is about to die, he reaches out his arms to Monk

-Monk THINKS he wants to like hug him or something

-As Monk bends down, Mosquito takes the knife out of his leg and stabs Monk with it

-Dragon comes out of nowhere and slashes Monk with a knife

-Both Monk and Mosquito die at the scene

-The random fifth dude who I don't remember the name and Dragon drag Mosquito's body away

-THE END

LOL.

I expected Monk and Mosquito to really bond throughout the movie, and I sort of felt a bit of it at the beginning but then it faded it away as the director focused his attention to build the plot.

I thought this movie could've been really good, like excellent. There were so many ideas that weren't developed and so many themes and motives that the director could have built on but instead he slightly covered a range of concepts. I sort of wish Dragon played a bigger role in the group. After his father died, he completely fell apart and didn't even want to seek revenge. I'm not saying he's not allowed to be sad and cry after his father died, but like... DUDE. YOU'RE A GANGSTER!!! FEEL SOME ANGER!!!

The casting was not bad. They were all pretty hot except for Monkey and.. OH YEAH I remember the fifth guy's name, it's Dog Boy, lol. So yeah... those 2 are ugly but the other 3 are amazingly hot.

I thought Ethan Ruan, the guy who played Monk, could've played Dragon's role a lot better. Those two should've switched roles.

This is Ethan Ruan who plays Dragon. I think he's a really good actor but then again, he's been in the industry for a while now so I guess it's a given. Like I mentioned earlier, I thought that he should've played Dragon in the movie. I think he would've been able to carry the role a lot better and also uphold the movie.

Apparently he's Tiffany Xu's boyfriend. I think Tiffany is absolutely gorgeous. Her acting is still kind of meh... but she's pretty. She's a mix, I'm not sure a mix of what though. I think she's Italian and Taiwanese? On Kang Xi Lai Le, the host sort of asked him if they were going out and he's like, "I'm dating right now?" And the host was like, "Well, there are picture of you kissing her... it was very obvious. You guys didn't even try to hide it." And he's like, "Oh... hahaha. *drops topic*" So I guess they haven't officially announced it yet. Even though i find him good looking, I still think she's too pretty for him, lol.

This is Mark Chao. I find him so HOT. That's why I have picture of him throughout his entry, lol. He plays Mosquito. I think he's an amazing actor for a newbie. I haven't really seen a new side of him though. His first acting job was a policeman who is very passionate about his job and is really loyal and follows all the rules. In this character, he also plays a very righteous and passionate person... I don't know. In terms of acting, I haven't seen another side of him, but who cares. He's hot.

I thought he was perfect to the cast, one thing I would change is his age in the movie. He was supposed to be a 17 year old, this guy doesn't look 17 at all. Why didn't they just make him like 20 or something and he's in university? Do people in university not get picked on?

When I was watching Kang Xi Lai Le, the director tells us how popular he is in Taiwan. I agree he's goodlooking, but I don't think he fits the role all too much besides the fact that his mom is white in the movie and his father is Taiwanese so... they need a mixed looking kid. But why the white mom in the first place? And his acting is horrendous. LOL. I didn't buy his "big brother" of the gang character. In the movie, he looks like a big wuss who can't stand up for himself without the help of his other 4 friends. His father in the movie is completely different from him. Tough. Strong. No one gets in his way. Too bad his son isn't half of what he is.

The movie, overall, is a good watch. I might watch it again just for the eye candy but the plot itself is lacking in many ways. I didn't really appreciate the love line that the director squished in for Mosquito. Just because he's a loner doesn't mean he needs to find love in the movie to define his newfound character. I thought his discovery of brotherhood and friendship would suffice as his character development. And there wasn't even chemistry between them... blah. I swear, I'm not biased here.

I like the voiceover at the beginning of the movie but not the end. So at the end of the movie when Monk bends down to give Mosquito a hug and is unexpectedly stabbed, it was supposed to be a huge revelation of plot and character on both Mosquito and Monk's part. The voiceover that explains why that happened is supposed to be the grande closure of the entire film. I thought the voiceover said too much, either remove the voiceover all together or say less. Basically the voiceover says something along the lines of, "Monk, you bent down to hug me because you thought I was going to hug you. In that moment, you chose to trust me. Therefore, you didn't join the gang for the sake of being a gangster. You joined it for the same reason as I did, for brotherhood. For friendship." Although it was touching, but I felt that the audience should've been given a chance to make that connection themselves instead of having A CHARACTER in the film explain it. I think the voiceover really took away the thunder of that final scene. They should've just left the scene as it is or maybe if they were really afraid that the audience wouldn't understand Monk's character, they could've added, "Monk, 你更我一样。我们做的一切都是为了兄弟。" That would've been nice. I don't think they needed to say all the "you bend down to hug me... blah blah blah." LIKE. LET THE AUDIENCE MAKE THAT CONNECTION! The scene is so nicely executed, why ruin it with all this logic? I think to say, "Monk, I know you didn't join the gang for the sake of being a gangster," that would've been really good. That's like putting complete faith in the audience to understand why Monk did what he did.

There is a short father-son thing going on between Mosquito and the leader of this other triad. I wanted them to explore that theme more and less on his love with a prostitute. The film apparently exceeded Avatar in box office success during the first week it was released in Taiwan. I thought the film had so much potential to be so much greater, but because of it's lacking plotline and themes, the mere genuine backbone of the movie was hidden. Therefore, to me, it's just another one of those gangster movies that try to portray deeper meaning than there actually is.