Still 2PM

My love for 2PM died a little after my Korean obsession turned into a Taiwanese addiction.

I still think those boys are very talented. Very true. Why do I think that? I guess it's probably because I remember watching Wild Bunny (I think that's what it was called) and the boys were just incredibly loud, wild and completely INSANE. Just watching 10 minutes of it and trying to keep up with them was impossible and I was watching it with English subs so I had to pause and read every 10 seconds of the video. Now that I think of it, I should've felt sorry to the subbers, must've been hard on them. Point is, those boys definitely appear genuine to me.

Vocally speaking, they're not the greatest singing group, but I don't see what there is to criticize? I mean, they CAN sing, all of them CAN sing. And by CAN sing, I mean, they all can sing WELL. Surely, if you decide to compare them to Mariah Carey, then they're no match, but if you compare them to the average singer, they're all right. And Taecyeon raps, okay?!

These boys specialize in acrobatics and their dancing, this is demonstrated throughout all their performances and promotions. There is a spectrum among the group, we have goofy, to awkward, to quiet, to loud, to just weird... Some sing better than others, some dance better than others, some rap better than others, some just look better than others... and together they make the group complete.

People constantly compare them to DBSK and I never really understand why. They're from two different management companies who had 2 different concepts in mind when the groups were made. DBSK was first made as a singing group (not a dancing group) of acapella and pop songs. Although they do dance... clearly Yunho and Junsu excelled, no? And the rest were just good. Junsu, Jaejoong, Changmin had a lot of singing parts in songs probably because they were the better singers or maybe they could cover more ranges in the melody.

2PM are made to be dancers, they're very mainstream R&B and hip-hopish? Junsu, Chansung and Wooyoung sing well, no? And the rest are just good. Wooyoung, Junho, Chansung are really good at doing all these flips. Nickkhun is just absolutely gorgeous. And Taec raps well.

It's been said before and I'll say it again, comparing DBSK and 2PM is like comparing apples and oranges. BUT. AND THERE IS A BUT. Although you can't exactly compare them fairly, I can't say that it's wrong for you to do so. I mean, these groups are out to make our money. And we spend it on whoever we think deserves it. Some people like good singers and some people like good dancers, some people go for the hottie, everyone has their own "idea" of what is good and what isn't based on what we find attractive and talented.

Anywayz. How did I even get sidetracked so much? I didn't even want to talk about all that.

The purpose of this post is regarding the  "Still 2PM" teaser. Everyone has been saying that the dance moves were sloppy and very badly done. In my personal opinion, I agree. I've seen 2PM do better. All their flips in the video seem to be at an angle... nothing's aligned properly. This isn't a live performance on stage, where they had one shot to pull everything off. After many retakes, this is as good as they could get it to be? I know what you lovers are all going to say, "They're only human!", "Let's see you do it!", "Stop being such a hater!" Ugh. Fans. Calm down! I'm not saying they suck, I'm just saying that I've seen better. And yes you can tell me how much these boys need sleep and how hard they've been working, and how everyone just needs to appreciate their work... these are just your assumptions and sympathetic love towards the boys. I'm just stating a personal opinion on what I thought of the teaser. Maybe the whole MV will be better. Don't know. But from the teaser, I'm not impressed. However, that's not to say the choreography is indeed very good. I mean, it must be hard to do flips like that and the last act was dead on.

Sorry Taec and Wooyoung, you know I still love you guys, right?

Hi, My Sweetheart Review

Bao Chu Jie is always rescuing the
incompetent Da Lung.

The problem with me when I watch dramas is that by the time I get to the last 5 episodes, I like to do what I call "fast-forward". What I do is skip the boring, stupid parts... which is about 75% of the stuff and guess what? It's smart! Once I fast-forwarded the ENTIRE drama and I still understood the entire plot. When I re-watched it without skipping, I felt like I already watched it and I didn't miss anything the first time around. ^__________^ Talk about drama-watching-pro-ness. LOL

Anyways, so I finished watched it like 2 weeks ago, so it's a little stale in my head.

The beginning of the drama is pretty captivating? A boy, named Xue Hai, lives in China and is going to leave for Taiwan for his college education. His older sister is screaming and all dramatic like, "NOOOOOOOOO. YOU CAN'T LEAVE!!!" And you see him walking out with 2 rows of servants/maids beside him and his 2nd eldest sister who's trying to hold back the eldest sister from running after him. From this you can tell that Da Lung IS FILTHY RICH and his eldest sister is very very very protective of him.

So he goes to school and his eldest sister follows him to help him register at the school and all. Well that’s her excuse anyway, it’s obviously portrayed that she didn’t want him to leave so she’s making all these excuses to follow him. When he gets there, he realizes that his sister registered him under the name Da Lung, which is supposed to be a really ugly name. My Chinese really sucks, so I’m not at the stage to be able to judge Chinese names. I think sometimes I might find them weird but I most the time I can’t tell if the name is a boy or a girl unless it’s really obvious! But for me, I think Da Lung sounds better than Xue Hai. LOL. Like Xue Hai sounds really strange to me... but apparently, Da Lung is supposed to be this really embarrassing name.

Dorky Da Lung

So anyways, on top of this “really embarrassing name”, he also carries an under-bite, a really ugly mushroom haircut, thick nerd glasses, and some ‘60s spenders. When you see this guy, you think ABSOLUTE DORK/SQUARE/NERD. He rooms with 2 pretty nice guys, they are his friends and they do “include him” in their events. So at school, there’s this really mean girl named Chen Bao Chu, people call her Bao Chu Jie because everyone is scared of her, no one wants to be her friend, no one wants to get in her way. But OF COURSE, Da Lung is this innocent boy who doesn’t know better and he’s all like, “Everyone deserves a friend. Even Bao Chu Jie.” So you know... they fall in love blah blah blah.

So Da Lung is this really filthy rich guy, remember? So why does his sister need to change his name? Because he’s so rich, she doesn’t want people to know who HE REALLY IS and like cause trouble. You know... like kidnap him and hold him hostage for a ransom or something. So Da Lung basically lies to everyone about how poor he is and because he is so protected by his sister for like 20 years, he doesn’t experience much. For instance, he doesn’t know how to ride a bus or pay at a restaurant and so he just blames it on the fact that he’s really poor and never got a chance to do any of that stuff.

Da Lung and his two roommates confronted by
Bao Chu Jie.

Bao Chu Jie, who ends up being his girlfriend for 3 years or something, also believes that he’s really poor and she doesn’t suspect anything. She doesn’t care that he’s poor since she does truly love him. HER MOM, however, is working her ass off to pay off debts that her husband left her with. And so her mom is all like, “YOU HAVE TO MARRY A RICH GUY.” And Bao Chu Jie is all like, “It’s my life... yadah yadah yadah...”

So the day that these guys graduate from college, Bao Chu Jie and Da Lung are supposed to meet up with each other. Da Lung wants to propose to her on that day so he bought a ring and waited for her at the designated place. And...

...she never shows up.

WHY?!

Bao Chu Jie is the aggressive one in the
relationship.

Because on her way there, she got into a car accident. LOL. As in, she’s running to their meet-up spot and gets hit by a car. She’s immediately shipped off to the hospital and of course, her phone is not with her nor would she hear it even if it did ring. However, BEFORE she left the house to meet Da Lung, she wrote a note to her mother saying, “Mom, I’m going to break up with Da Lung and go marry the guy you want me to marry.” Does she really want to break up with him? No, she only did it because her mom threatened her if she didn’t break up with him, her mom has “connections” and so she can make sure that Da Lung won’t graduate. *rolls eyes* If you have such powerful connections, why the hell are you struggling with debt?! So anyways, Bao Chu Jie makes a fake promise to her mom so that her mom won’t interfere with Da Lung’s graduation and once Da Lung graduates, she plans to run off with him.

Bao Chu Jie's mom gives Da Lung the note to read.

So basically, Da Lung plans to marry her. And Bao Chu Jie plans to run off with him. But neither of them knows each others’ plans. So since Da Lung doesn’t see her, he goes to her house to see her. It turns out that she isn’t there. Instead, her mother opens the door and goes, “What are you doing here? She already broke up with you!”

And Da Lung is like, “What?! No she didn’t! She was supposed to meet me today!”

And the mom goes, “She was going to meet up with you to break up with you! She’s in Europe right now and she’s going to marry some other guy.” The mom lies that she’s in Europe so that Da Lung doesn’t try to look for her. Because if she’s like, “Oh my daughter is in a car accident,” then obviously, he’s going to go to the hospital and look for her.

Da Lung doesn’t believe her. And so her mom goes to grab that note that her daughter left her which says that she’s going to break up with Da Lung. And Da Lung knows her handwriting and so he totally believes the note. She’s absolutely heart-broken. And he goes out into the rain and there’s his dramatic scene of him on his knees, crying and wailing in the rain and he shouts, “I PROMISE NEVER TO TRULY LOVE ANYONE EVER AGAIN!”

So retarded. But it’s an idol drama. I didn’t expect much.

Next scene. 3 years later.

Da Lung is all grown up and he’s turned himself into a hottie and a player. AND BOY is he so hot. The moment I saw him, I just saw all this smoke coming out of him. Seriously man. I wouldn’t mind being played by him. LOL. And he’s such a bad-boy now because he doesn’t really love anyone, he just hooks up with girls and make them fall for him.

So three years are lost.

What has changed in this time frame?

Da Lung

-becomes really hot

-looks like a normal person- loses the glasses, ugly (cute) mushroom haircut, ugly ‘60s clothes

-becomes a player

-DEEP DOWN INSIDE, he still loves Bao Chu Jie

-he and his family officially move to Taiwan

-he works for the family corporation now

- he changes his name back to Xue Hai

Bao Chu Jie

-she becomes really close to her Xue Zhang (Xue Zhang is like classmate from a higher grade. Mind you, this Xue Zhang is probably her only friend, other than Da Lung)

-she continues to look for Da Lung to clear up the misunderstanding 3 years ago

-she no longer lives with her mother... I don’t know why?!

-Xue Zhang helps her find a place to live

-Xue Zhang also finds her a job... a DJ at a radio station

Xue Hai looking mighty smexy.

So one day as Xue Hai (remember he changed his name?) is driving in his $2 million car, he turns on the radio. OMG. And guess what radio station he turns on? Bao Chu Jie’s radio station! He hears her voice and immediately recognizes it.

He gets one of his secretaries to get as much information about the DJ as possible. And the truth is revealed, the DJ IS BAO CHU JIE. Now what? Well, a NORMAL person would just go to the radio station and confront her. “Hey. You ditched me 3 years ago for a rich guy in Europe. WTF?! Well, guess what?! I’m filthy rich too! If you married me, you wouldn’t need to be working at a shitty radio station!”

BUT. OF COURSE. What is logical in an idol drama?

Instead, Xue Hai goes and BUYS the entire radio station and therefore he becomes her boss. Bao Chu Jie does recognize him but Xue Hai denies that he’s Da Lung and because of his major transformation, she believes that he’s only a person who looks like Da Lung and not Da Lung himself.

Xue Hai has this brilliant plan. He wants revenge. He claims that he doesn’t love her, in which he clearly does, because if you don’t love someone, why go through all this trouble. So his plan is to make her fall in love with him and then dump her the way that she dumped him.

So how does this plan work out? Does she fall for him?

I would say they look really cute together, but I want
him all to myself, lol.

It’s a hard question to answer. She doesn’t exactly fall for Xue Hai because Xue Hai’s personality is all like in-your-face-I’m-a-rich-bitch-I-can-get-any-girl-I-want. I think she only weavers at times when Xue Hai resembles Da Lung. For instance, if they’re on the bus and Xue Hai regurgitates what Bao Chu Jie said to him three years ago on a bus. Then she can’t help but to treat Xue Hai AS Da Lung. And who can blame her? I mean, in front of her is a man who looks exactly like the guy she loves. And he says all these things that remind her of him and bring all these memories back to her that she associates with Da Lung.

So throughout the entire drama, she has this internal battle with herself and she basically just tells herself that she can’t fall in love with Xue Hai because he resembles Da Lung. And she kind of forces herself to like Xue Zhang instead. Her Xue Zhang has been in love with her for like a gazillion years but she only been treating him like a good friend.

Xue Hai gets frustrated because he’s thinking, “Yo. Why don’t you love me?! You love rich guys, don’t you?! I eat money. I shit money. I’m made of money. Why don’t you fall in love with me?”

And well, here’s the dramatic irony. The audience knows that Xue Hai = Da Lung. We also know that Xue Hai is only a bastard because he believes Bao Chu Jie left Da Lung 3 years ago for a rich guy. And we know that Bao Chu Jie had no intentions of doing so then and she is still now in love with Da Lung.

I use Da Lung to refer to the boy Bao Chu Jie went to school with. And I use Xue Hai to refer to the guy that reminds Bao Chu Jie of Da Lung. They are indeed the same person but they have very different personalities. So I can’t exactly use the names interchangeably. Da Lung is not Xue Hai. Why? Because Da Lung is sweet and innocent and he doesn’t possess any qualities that Xue Hai has. But Xue Hai CAN be Da Lung. Why? Because Xue Hai original character is this sweet boy but he changes into this jerk because of a tragic love incident he experiences three years ago. I hope that clears something up?

So how does this all go down?

Well, Xue Hai spends a lot of time with her, trying to woo her and all and she’s all like, “Get away from me!” Xue Hai pretty much just stalks her. Eventually, she breaks and she goes, “I can’t stand looking at you because you remind me of Da Lung.”

And he’s like, “Why does Da Lung mean that much to you?”

And eventually slowly, very slowly, as in not all of this happens all at once, Xue Hai starts to find out the truth about what happened three years ago.

So what does he do after he realizes that he’s misunderstood her all along?

See, a NORMAL person would just say, “Yo man. I’m Da Lung. Sorry for being such a bastard this entire time.” LOL.

But. NO. The drama takes another route and puts the audience on another roller coaster ride. Xue Hai “pretends” to contact Da Lung and he goes to tell Bao Chu Jie that Da Lung is now happily married and she should stop looking for him and let him live his life in peace.

So basically, Xue Hai tries to get Bao Chu Jie to forget Da Lung and make her fall in love with him. and now you’re thinking... isn’t that what he’s been doing the ENTIRE time?

Not exactly. Before, he only wants Bao Chu Jie to love him so that he can take revenge. Now however, he wants her to ACTUALLY love him and to let go of the old Da Lung.

Now, I’ve kept the plot pretty simple because 1. I’m no good at explaining things and 2. Because there are too many useless side plots and 3. I can’t remember to explain everything. LOL.

So here’s another character to bring into the plot. Her name is Mo Li. Mo Li is a classmate, who studied with both Da Lung and Bao Chu Jie three years ago. Mo Li’s dad is the principle of the college. Da Lung’s/Xue Hai’s older sister is friends with Mo Li’s dad. Mo Li is portrayed as this really beautiful and elegant girl that makes every guy fall to their knees. Now Da Lung’s/Xue Hai’s older sister wants to hook her up with him. She’s interested in him but he doesn’t like her that way. So now that they meet again 3 years later, she knows that Xue Hai = Da Lung.

Da Lung and Mo Li

So one day when Mo Li goes to visit Xue Hai at the radio station, she bumps into Bao Chu Jie and of course the subject of Da Lung comes up. And Mo Li goes, “Don’t tell me you don’t know Xue Hai is Da Lung. It’s why you’re working here, no? You only want to get closer to him.”

And she’s like, “WTF?!”

So she goes to see Xue Hai and slaps him in the face like 3 times or something. And now shit finally freaking hits and freaking shitty fan! Geez! The truth is all out. Everyone now knows everything!

Bao Chu Jie goes, “How could you see me in so much pain and not tell me that you’re Da Lung?”

And he goes, “Because... I thought you left me for some rich guy... blah blah blah.”

And she goes, “So all this time, that’s how you saw me? You didn’t trust me? You thought I would just leave for you another guy?”

And well... I mean, can you blame him? If I saw a note that you wrote to your mom about dumping me, and I had no idea you were in a car accident, I would also believe what your mom said about you leaving with some guy to get married. Geez.

So Bao Chu Jie doesn’t forgive him and decides to quit her job at the radio station so she doesn’t have to see him anymore.

JUST WHEN I FREAKING THOUGHT THE DRAMA WOULD BE OVER...

There’s a fire at the radio station. And the only person left in there is Bao Chu Jie.

Xue Hai rushes up to the station to save her. And I think this is pretty much the only scene that made me really teary. So he goes up to save her and some piece of burning wood falls on his leg and he’s trapped. And Bao Chu Jie tries to get him out and he’s like, “No. Just go before the fire gets too big and you can’t get out.”

And she’s like, “No I’m not leaving you here alone.”

And, okay, I have to use Chinese, because it doesn’t sound as good in English, “你不要理我！快走!” And she’s like, “要走，我們一起走! 要死，我們一起死!” Of course, it’s really typical but it still made me cry. They acted out the scene really well.

And Xue Hai is like, “No. You’re not going to die here.” And she’s like, “No, I’m not going to let that happen.”

And Xue Hai goes, “No matter if it’s Da Lung or Xue Hai, just know that they both loved you and still love you. 那就夠了.” And she’s like bawling her eyes out.

OUT OF NOWHERE! XUE ZHANG COMES and he’s like, “BAO CHU! WHERE ARE YOU?!”

And Xue Hai yells out, “She’s here! She’s here! Come get her!”

And basically Xue Hai is still trapped under the piece of wood. And Xue Zhang pretty much has to pry Bao Chu off of him and carry her out of the fire and she tries to fight him off but can’t. And Xue Hai and Bao Chu Jie are just crying their eyes out as they’re being separated between life and death.

Personally, I would end the drama end. I would kill off Xue Hai, why? Because it’s most realistic. I mean, the fire is pretty out of control. I don’t see any firefighters in sight. He should die. And Bao Chu Jie and him already got the closure they need.

BUT. INSTEAD.

Unexpectedly, I say unexpectedly because the drama doesn’t show any of this, Xue Hai is in the hospital, with no any-kind of degree burns whatsoever. Funny. Xue Hai is rescued, I’m assuming by firefighters and he’s in an unconscious state. Xue Hai’s two sisters are absolutely miserable because the only son in the family is in a coma. Bao Chu Jie goes in and talks to him and he wakes up... -___________________-. Sorry about how blunt I’m making this. I’m just going to cut the icing on the cake because this is taking way longer than expected. LOL.

So he wakes up and guess what? He loses his memory! He goes back to being Da Lung again and he forgets that he was ever Xue Hai and he even forgets who Bao Chu Jie is. He forgets everything and just goes back to Da Lung before he even met Bao Chu Jie. I don’t know why he would lose his memory...

So Bao Chu Jie does all these things to try and make him remember who she is but everything fails. Then Da Lung gets kidnapped by some people who want money from the family. Bao Chu Jie goes to save him. I think she actually does save him. And they both end up in the hospital. And when Xue Hai wakes up, he remembers everything and everyone again. BUT, he pretends to forget who Bao Chu Jie is. Why? Because he thinks that he made her suffer enough and he doesn’t deserve such a nice person. -___________-. ARGH. Stupidity at its best.

I forget what happened, but eventually Bao Chu Jie realizes that it’s all an act. She catches him and she proposes to him, lol. He says yes. They get married. The end.

SIGH. Wow. That took a while.

So what do I think about this drama?

See. I watched this drama VERY reluctantly. Why? Because Rainie’s acting (the actress who plays Bao Chu Jie) can be really annoying. I’ve seen most of her other dramas and they do get on my nerves sometimes. So I sort of vowed never to watch a Rainie drama again. But then SHOW LUO (the guy who plays Da Lung/Xue Hai) is in it and I’ve never seen any of his dramas before so I decided to give this a try... but VERY reluctantly.

The drama does have its moments that make me smile, cry, laugh and really appreciate the piece. However, there were HUGE loopholes in this drama, not as much as 霹靂MIT but, nonetheless, still loopholes. This entire drama is built off of ONE dramatic irony. What is it? The fact that Da Lung believes Bao Chu Jie left him to marry a rich guy. The beginning of the drama is slow, mainly because the director is trying to build memories for the both of them to reminisce later on in the drama. The middle of the drama is okay, the pace picks up a little but it gets repetitive. Xue Hai’s stalking gets on my nerves a little. The end of the drama is slow, why? Because I want the drama to end and it doesn’t. A lot of the scenes near the end of the drama are just them crying by themselves and thinking about their memories together. And this is where the director just plays a bunch of flashbacks. BORING. I can’t stand overly-used flashbacks, especially if they’re just a collage of happy times spent together.

The final scene is kind of cheesy and lame. It’s not that I disagree with them getting married but I did hope for a grande finale but instead I got this low-budget wedding and really cheesy lines. Ew.

Loopholes. I’m still asking the question why Bao Chu doesn’t just tell Xue Hai straight up why she didn’t like him. I mean, Xue Hai stalks her and she goes, “No leave me alone.” And Xue Hai asks, “Why can’t I love you? And why won’t you give me a chance?” This is the most perfect opportunity for her to just say, “Because I love a guy who looks like you. I’m still looking for him. I can’t love you.” Why doesn’t she just say that?! Instead, she gives all these ambiguous responses.

Also. Why does Xue Hai turn into a jerk? I can understand a playboy but if he’s going to make Bao Chu Jie fall in love with him, why doesn’t he just be a rich Da Lung? Be a Da Lung again but flaunt your money in front of her? Why be a jerk? I don’t understand.

And Bao chu Jie’s mom, where the hell did she go? She just disappeared off the face of the planet? What happened to marrying Bao Chu off to a rich guy to help pay off the family debt?

And even if those aren't loopholes, let's say the director just wants to write the story that way, I mean, the audience can't control what the director wants to write, right? I've written stories so I know it's hard to fill in every gaping hole with some kind of logical and reasonable explanation and so most the time it's just best to leave it and hope the audience doesn't notice, lol. So putting all loopholes aside, it still doesn't explain what I'm supposed to get out of this drama. I'm not expecting some life-changing enlightenment, obviously. I do expect some sort of lesson, moral, theme of any-sort... you know... just so it doesn't feel like I wasted 14 hours of my life.

So was I supposed to learn that ugly and nice people can change into hot bastards because of love? Or is it  that true love can never be forgotten in one's heart? Or is it that nothing can stop true love even blatant lies and a heart-for-revenge? Or is it that you can never hate someone that you truly love even if you try? Or is it that people just need to stop getting into car accidents and amnesia to cut to the happily ever after?

Honestly. I didn't get anything from it. Usually I get SOMETHING out of any kind of crap-waste-of-a-time-movie/drama, not saying that this drama is crap but... I just didn't see any message. The drama did touch on money... I guess the lesson is money can never buy true love. Yeah, that's probably the stupid message. Or maybe we aren't supposed to read any messages, maybe it's supposed to be one of those relaxing-take-it-easy-let-your-brain-mush kind of dramas.

Overall, the drama is good. 5 being average, I would give this a 6.5/10. I wouldn't watch it again... all the amnesia and roller coaster runs drove me crazy. Some parts I just wanted to jump through my computer screen and like... strangle the damn people. I really do appreciate the beginning of the movie. The character development of Da Lung and Bao Chu Jie are amazing. I love the beginning of the series... I thought the beginning would be the part I hate the most because they're acting all stupid and rebellious, lol but it turned out to be the opposite. I prefer the beginning much more than the ending. Although the drama is only 14 episodes, I felt like I was watching a 30 episode drama, all I could think was, "WHEN ARE THESE PEOPLE GOING TO STOP FORGETTING EACH OTHER?! AND WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER?" Because at a certain point in the drama, you can pretty much tell if it's going to be a happy or sad ending.

Like I said before, the drama DID have its moments where you think, "Wow. This is absolutely beautiful." and  "Wow. This is absolutely brilliant. How did they come up with this?" But those moments were brief, it didn't take long for the cliche dialogue to ruin everything.

I think a lot of Rainie Yang and/or Show Luo fans would absolutely adore this drama. They make a cute couple, and they do have chemistry, too bad the script couldn't have been a little bit more concise and to-the-point.

霹雳MIT Review

I finished watching 霹雳MIT, it's a 2008 Taiwanese drama.

Ever since I watched Bump Off Lover, I've been dying to find a substitute for it. Bump Off Lover is also a Taiwan drama, I think it aired in 2006 and it was only 14 episodes. I absolutely love it. It is so different from the typical lovey-dovey dramas, it is a suspense/mystery kind of series. Wikipedia considers it a "thriller" but I beg to differ, it's dark and a little scary at times but not exactly a "thriller" nothing in it makes you scream. So anyways. That drama is SO good that I had to find another suspense/mystery drama so since I sort of have a bit of time over this summer, I decided to wikipedia some dramas to watch.

I'm really into the Taiwan entertainment stuff now. So first I started watching Dancing King teach Rainie Yang how to dance on Youtube and it was just an EXCERPT of a show. So I googled what the show is called and it's called 娱乐百分百(100% Entertainment) so then I started watching the variety show and I totally fell in love with 小猪 and 小鬼. They're so cute and funny. No not funny, HILARIOUS. THEY MAKE ME LAUGHHH SO HARD. And one of the episodes I watched guest starred 飛輪海(Fahrenheit) and I started to really like Aaron. I never really paid attention to that band before. I also thought of them as the stupid Taiwan band in which none of the members could sing, dance or act and everyone in Taiwan who is a fan of them is completely blind because none of the members are good looking either. In other words, they were just a band who had NOTHING to offer. I mean, Japanese has a lot of those like pretty boy groups who can't sing or dance but they're good looking and they have personality, but 飛輪海 had nothing! I just always wondered why people liked them so much. So NOW that I have watched a variety show and they can kind of show their personality, I guess they're sort of funny. Sort of. Not really. I still think they can't sing or dance. OH MY GOSH. They performed songs off their newest album and they were all offtune half the time and they weren't even HARMONIZED during the chorus. At the end I don't know where the applause was coming from?! LIKE... WHO'S CLAPPING?! AND WHY?! IT WAS SO BAD!!! The song was good, they just couldn't sing it because when I heard the album version after the music technician cleans up their tones and voices, the song does sound pretty good. When they had their solos, they sounded much better. I think maybe they can sing... they just can't sing together. Honestly, when they sing together it sounds like one of those kindergarden choirs where the teacher tries to put a performance together and the kids are all singing at different times and at different volumes. Geez.

In terms of looks, I guess to me, now they look better and more mature and not so anime-like. I think Calvin and Wuzun are the two guys in the group where I can actually see their face. I only know what half of what Aaron's and Jiro's faces look like because their hair drapes over their head and face. But I can tell they're good looking because if you're ugly, hair isn't going to cover it. How do I know this? Danson Tang. I'm sorry, but that guy is so weird looking to me!!! He has so many fans though! So yeah. Anyways, the guys look decent to me now, not bad. I can NOW see why they have fans. LOL.

So WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ALL THIS?! Point is, I watched 飛輪海 on 娱乐百分百 and Aaron caught my attention so I wikipedia-ed him and I realized that his newest suspense drama is 霹雳MIT so I decided to watch it with VERY high hopes. The short summary that I read really caught my attention so I was literally like, "Okay. I'm going to watch all 16 episodes right now STRAIGHT no sleep!"

So the first episode starts and I was beyond confused. Why? Because they don't give you any sort of background information, you're just thrown into a plot. And it's not like thrown into a crime scene, a very suspenseful sort of plot where you're very attentive "into" everything, trying to figure out what's going on. You're basically just randomly thrown into the plot with nothing, really boring. And you're sort of forced to put pieces together yourself along the way. I can probably tell you that the only reason why people would watch this from beginning to the end is for Aaron Yan and Guigui. Non-fans would probably just go, "Yo. Wtf?! So retarded *turns on another drama*"

So the story starts off with Aaron on campus. I STILL don't know if he plays a university or a high school student. I'm guessing he's a university student just because I think at ONE POINT his friend mentioned that he was 22. So...

But anyways, before I say anything else. Let me tell you what I've learned from the drama:

Mastermind builds a maze. 007 and
Lucifer need to know what numbers
to step on or it will explode.

1. University students do not need to study at all. They can be A+ students and never have to carry a book, nevermind read one.
2. You can access student records from any computer on campus, you do not need administrative passwords or any sort of server database.
3. People dying and getting kidnapped on campus ON A REGULAR BASIS does not make headline news... EVER or make it news-worthy.
4. Through the phone, you can tell if the people on the other end is swimming in deep or shallow water just by listening to the water sounds.
5. On the entire university campus, there’s like 2 professors and a principal, literally.
6. When you hear your name being called in a creepy voice repetitively in the washroom, don’t run out. Just plop yourself on the floor and cover your ears and cry. Oh, and call the hottest guy in the school to come save you.
7. A picture of a skull from clipart posted on the bulletin board in daylight is enough to scare the living shit out of university girls.
8. Anyone hit in the head is automatically knocked unconscious, regardless of power, location, or weapon used.
9. There are no caretakers or police on campus. Evidence or blood or STRAINS OF HAIR will be found at the scene of the crime after several days even if the area hasn’t been blocked off.
10. There is no need to test any of the hair, blood or evidence found at the crime scene. You can just automatically assume it belongs either to the victim or the suspect. It usually belongs to the person who fits the story you've formulated better.
11. You can be running at the same speed behind someone, but the moment they turn a corner, they have the ability to completely disappear even if the area is completely empty.
12. When trying to guess someone’s username or password, just call the genius guy out. He’ll get it right on the first try, there is no need to hire a hacker or perform any sort of hack.
13. When entering into dark rooms, don’t turn on the lights, use a flashlight instead so your chances of getting hit by an object (#8) will increase.
14. University students are allowed to be detained by teachers at midnight for interrogation. This is not considered kidnapping or a violation of rights.
15. People, who are afraid of water and have never learned how to swim, can suddenly jump into the water and swim to save someone in the time of crisis.
16. University buildings are open 24/7 for students to run around and kill each other.
17. Students have enough money to buy bombs, high-tech surveillance cameras, chemicals.
18. Students have enough time on their hands to build complex contraptions and mazes and "games" to torture their hostages/victims.
19. 5 year old kids will come back 15 years later for revenge because they were teased.
20. When people burn documents or evidence to try and hide the truth, they will always walk away before the object is completely in ashes so that the person spying on them and go and put out the fire and rescue what is left of it. Usually what is left of it is the most important bit of the document/evidence. The fire will never burn the most important bits.
21. Video cameras can be installed anywhere and programmed to be watched on any computer at any time with a click of the enter key.
22. You can bid for pizza and cookies on an auction site.
23. More than half the buildings on campus are just empty rooms that look like warehouses. Perfect for hiding hostages and building bombs.
24. Students don’t get fat from eating 5 bowls of noodles at midnight pretty much every night.In the most hopeless situation, just believe in love. It will help you find the right key to unlock the lock on the door.

It explodes because Lucifer is stupid.

So as you can see already. Nothing in the drama is believable and obviously I KNOW movies and dramas aren't supposed to be realistic and all-true-can-totally-happen. However, it has to be BELIEVABLE and I think this aspect is often forgotten in idol dramas. It's almost like they write whatever they want and if there are loopholes in the plot they just ignore it or they choose some really lame excuse to just fill in the gap.

This drama I thought had potential to be really good but it seemed really low budget. I mean, the cast was so small, it was like they couldn't even hire enough people to play as other professors or students. And setting was so repetitive throughout the drama.

Why did I think it has potential? The idea of a serial mastermind at a university has never been really explored in Taiwan dramas. A team of students put together to catch this mastermind is absolutely brilliant I think. And I like how the group of students are "blacklist" students which means that they fail academically and that doesn't really mean much here in North American universities but in Asian countries, they have rankings and so if you're at the bottom of the list, it's well-known, it's not something you can hide.

So what's the problem Steph? Well, nothing seems realistic. I agree that having a serial killer in the school isn't realistic to begin with but it feels possible to me. Like... it's not IMPOSSIBLE to have a serial mastermind at a university. Maybe it would be hard to have one at UT because it's so big and there's no campus feel, but I think Chinese universities have a much smaller campus... well, at least the one in the drama is. I almost thought it was a high school O_o. So I think the idea of this serial killer can totally work and having a group of students to go after them can totally work too... but... you would have to keep it believable. How?

霹雳MIT work all night to crack the case.

For starters. POLICE and FBI or some kind of higher authority need to be involved. We're talking about a serial killer hurting students! This isn't just school matter anymore. Second of all, students on blacklist or not, should study and do homework or at least ATTEND the damn classes. Obviously, I'm not asking for the director to film the characters sitting at desks and doing their homework for 5 minutes. I'm just asking for a BRIEF scene where I can see them attending classes, sort of like a scenes starts with the student walking OUT of a classroom. You know? Or a scene starts with the student being frustrated with homework and slams his textbook shut and walks out of his dorm to whatever they have to do. YOU KNOW?! LIKE SHOWWWW THE AUDIENCE that the student is a STUDENT. Can you believe that in the ENTIRE drama, in all 16 episodes, not ONCE did these students hold a frigging pencil or attend a single class. There was this ONE line in the entire movie where a teacher was like, "Okay. That's it. You head onto class right now." If it weren't for that, I think I would've just assumed that students at that university don't have classes to attend. I mean, the WHOLE 16 episodes, the director didn't waste a second to show the audience that these are STUDENTS and TEACHERS and they're in a school environment.

TIME. I think the time issue throughout the drama really bothered me. It's morning, then night, then afternoon and in one episode they solve ONE case. Too fast. That's like watching 16 CSI episodes in a row. AND WE ALL KNOW HOW RIDICULOUSLY FAKE CSI IS!!! So yeah, they should've at least slowed down the pace of the entire drama, I know they were going for the each episode, new case, new game sort of thing. But... it was just too fast for me I thought. As mentioned above, I really disliked the frequent group meetings at night. I mean, that's so unbelievable... students have to sleep! No?! It's like everyday they meet at the middle of the night to come up with some brilliant plan to counter the mastermind. So basically these students don't study and don't sleep. Their life is pretty much dedicated to finding this mastermind.

Okay, let me start from the beginning now so that you can all understand better.

So the drama focuses on this group of students who are "blacklist" students, which means they fail academically. There is 4 of them and they're led by a teacher named Cherry. So they call her Miss Cherry or Cherry老师. These 4 students all differ in personality and character development. One thing I'm pleased with is the character development throughout the drama and the diversity of the characters. The 4 protagonists:

1. Zhan Shi De; aka. 007 - Aaron Yan

From left to right: 747, 007, Lucifer, 187

He's the genius in the group. His dad is some really famous detective. He is supposed to follow his father's footsteps and also become a brilliant detective but he has some disease... Meniere's disease. Something to do with a disease where your hearing progressively decreases and you get migraines and you faint easily. Funny thing is that Aaron who plays this role is also diagnose with this disease. Crazy eh? He was diagnose a year later after he filmed this drama. Okay so anyways, because this dude has this disease, he's kicked out of this great academy of learning how to become a detective and his father sends him to his university to study. He's the really smart one. Really good looking one. And he's usually the one who solves all the cases.

2. Huang Hui Hong; aka. 747 - Xiao Gui/Huang Hong Sheng/Alien Huang

He's the kind of student one in the group. He's the hero that kind of rushes into everything without thinking and just kinds of ruins the entire plan the group made. He’s really good at running so his leg is called Golden Leg or something like that. LOL. That’s his specialty in the group... running.

3. Qian Fu Hao; aka. 187 – Lu Ting Wei

He’s supposed to be the “playboy” in the group, which means that every girl in the school just falls in love with him the moment they see him and he can make them do anything. I like this concept. LOL. And also has this “network” which is made up of all the girls (I think hot girls) in the school. So if anything happens in the school and he needs to know, for instance, if anyone has seen a guy with a purple baseball cap walking around the campus, he just texts his network of girls and within seconds anyone who has seen a guy with a purple baseball cap would send him a picture text and the location. See? Kind of amazing, don’t you think? I actually really like the actor who plays this part. He is good looking and he totally fits the character. Originally, the part was given to some other dude, who isn’t even good looking. And about a month into filming, he was arrested for sexual harassment... I think that’s what he was arrested for. And so the part was given to Lu Ting Wei instead, which I’m so grateful for.

4. Li Xiao Xing; aka. Tian Mo Xing – Gui Gui

So why doesn’t she have a code name? Well, apparently the codes were given by Miss Cherry to help her remember the numbers on her social insurance card or something like that. And since all the numbers were given out, she doesn’t have any more numbers to given and therefore, her name is Tian Mo Xing which translates to Lucifer. She’s the only girl in this 霹雳MIT group. *rolls eyes* OF COURSE a girl is needed in the group, or else how would the typical love triangle form? So she’s the love interest of 747 and 007. I’m just going to use code names to describe these people because it’s much easier. 187 doesn’t like her even though he’s a womanizer because she’s not hot enough for him. But everyone still cares for her even though she’s completely useless. Oh, well her skill is following her instincts and reading horoscopes and zodiacs and fortune cookies -_________-. What a useful skill. Well, it does sometime serve a useful purpose in the drama and I think... they could’ve really made her into a really plot-breaking character because of her mystic skill but sadly they kept her character really shallow.

So those are the main protagonists.

Le Ke Ying, Miss Cherry, and Teacher Angel

Now for the antagonists:

1. Teacher Angel

Although her name sounds nice, she’s a total bitch. In the drama, she plays the teacher but often times, she acts more like the principal. She just goes around ordering people what to do and she can tell Miss Cherry what to do. So I get this feeling that she’s of higher authority. She looks up to smart students and students who have parents who can help their school expand. She thinks Miss Cherry is stupid and 霹雳MIT is completely useless. I just sort of wished that she didn’t think this way for the ENTIRE frigging drama because it’s so tiring. I mean... when are you going to wake up and see that 霹雳MIT has done so much to save your damn ass.

2. The Principal

I don’t know if he’s really considered an antagonist since he doesn’t really do much. He’s the father of Miss Cherry. See. This is how I see it. If TEACHER ANGEL can boss Miss Cherry around, who’s the PRINCIPAL’S daughter, then obviously she’s of higher authority. He hangs around Teacher Angel more. They have some kind of affair going on that I never really cared about only to find out that their affair plays a big role in driving the plot forward. I only see him as an antagonist because he’s a catalyst to all the killings. I will explain how later. But he’s not bad in the way of interfering with 霹雳MIT nor does he directly CAUSE any of these incidents.

3. Lu Ke Ying

THE BAD GUY. In the beginning, he’s portrayed as this innocent boy who bullied by everyone. He’s the son of Teacher Angel and so obviously she favors him and if he does anything wrong, she’ll protect him. What I don’t understand is how the students have the guts to pick on a TEACHER’S son... that makes no sense. If anything, you should suck up to him and be his best friend! Students are so stupid.

OKAY. SO NOW DOWN TO THE REAL PLOT.

The school has this bad guy, we’ll just call him the Mastermind, who tries to screw up the school and make bad things happen. What do you mean by bad things? So what he does is he tries to find weak students or students who have a immense amount of hate inside of them and he brings out that hate. By doing so, he helps the students find ways of expressing their hate and taking revenge of the horrible things that has happened to them. So there are 16 events that happen, and obviously I’m not going to go through them because some of them are really stupid and LAME.

So Mastermind has a CD that he passes to the person who he wants to play the game with. So let’s say, I’m ranked second place on the school ranking and I know the girl who ranked first cheated to get first place. I have this immense hate towards her. Mastermind knows that I hate her (I don’t know how) and he gives me a CD and he shows me how to play the game so that I can get back at her for cheating. You know? So I might use candle wax to write something scary in the girl’s show stall and time it SO PERFECTLY that the first ranked girl walks, uses the shower stall and when she turns on the tap, instead of water, red water comes out, in which looks like blood, and the scary writing shows up and scares the shit out of her. Make sense? And I follow her everywhere to get her all paranoid. LOL. And I eventually poison her. LOL.

While all this is happening, the 霹雳MIT group tries to help the first ranking girl by finding out who is doing all this stuff to her and WHY. They eventually catch me and I confess to them by saying, “I DIDN’T WANT TO DO ALL THIS! MASTERMIND MADE ME!”

And 霹雳MIT response, “Do you also have CD?”

I nod.

“Where is it?”

“In my room.”

霹雳MIT rushes to my room to find the CD gone. Instead they find a puzzle piece.

Get it?

So all 16 episodes is really just something bad happens, 霹雳MIT tries to find out who Mastermind is targeting. They will catch the person who Mastermind uses to hurt other people. They will find a puzzle piece and never get the actual CD. All the puzzle pieces put together some sort of picture that’s supposed to explain why Mastermind is doing all of this. What is his ultimate goal?

So near the end of the series, I think episode 14, you find that Lucifer is involved in Mastermind’s plans. She is apparently his twin O________o. Of course, we don’t figure all this out to the end, but here’s the full explanation.

Both Lucifer and Lu Ke Ying are separated at birth. Teacher Angel is their mother and her affair with the Principal makes him the biological father of the children. I’m still UNSURE whether or not he is aware of it the entire time or if he finds out the same time the audience finds out, you know? Either way, I don’t think it changes much. So both Lucifer and Lu Ke Ying eventually find out that they are siblings and so they get together to get back at their parents. Actually, I should reword that. They’re not getting back at their parents, they want to see what matters more to their parents, them or the school itself. So they target these “weak” students and basically just cause trouble in the school. Kidnapping, fighting, I think people do get killed too and so all this stuff happens and Teacher Angel has to protect the school’s image and her son. What I don’t get is what exactly are they protecting their school from? The director never adds the public in or the press. There are no press conferences of the principal giving the public some kind of 交代 of what happened. Teacher Angel only mentions other international schools wanting to join with them to expand their school internationally. But that’s about it, as far as I’m aware, the public doesn’t even know what’s happening in the school.

So Lu Ke Ying is the mastermind behind everything. Lucifer helps out but near the end she wants him to give up the game and he refuses. The final scene, Lu Ke Ying kidnaps Teacher Angel, the principal and Lucifer and he ties them all to chairs and puts them at a dinner table. And he goes, “I’m so glad that we can finally sit together and have a full family dinner. Tonight, we will all be truthful to each other because there are no lies in a family.” PFFT. OKAY?! WHAT family fantasy do you live in? Seriously, family members lie to each other ALL the time and usually the lies are made to keep the family together. I guess, since their family is all split up, they have nothing to lose right? So I guess it doesn’t hurt for them to be honest with each other.

So Lu Ke Ying brings them together and he’s like, “So why did you abandon my twin sister?”

And the mom is like, “Because I only had enough milk to feed one of you. You were the weak one, so I kept you and I gave her away to my best friend. I knew she would be taken care of.”

And he’s like, “ARE THESE MORE LIES?! BECAUSE I CAN’T STAND ANYMORE LIES!”

And the mom is like, “That is the truth. If you don’t believe me there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Lu Ke Ying believes her. And somehow 007 is also caught in this dinner table. I don’t know why, he doesn’t exactly fit the family. I don’t think he should’ve been there. That’s such bad directing/script-writing. Maybe they wanted to portray that no matter what, there family can never be a complete whole on its own, there always has to be something/someone in the middle obstructing the circle. However, I feel that the final climax scene should only have the 4 family members because throughout the WHOLE drama, that’s what Lu Ke Ying really wants. He should be granted that final wish. And I think it would be much more symbolic to just have the 4 of them without 007 there. So anyways, with 007 there, he says to Lucifer, “It’s not that she doesn’t love you now. She does. But because she gave you up, she doesn’t acknowledge you as her daughter now as a punishment for herself.” I think that’s a good justification as to why Teacher Angel is so cold to her but I think even if she were to punish herself, she shouldn’t punish her daughter. It would’ve been more believable if some mother-daughter love was shown throughout the film but there is none whatsoever, so I didn’t buy the “to punish herself” excuse.

So after the truth comes out, Lu Ke Ying eats a cherry which has poison in it and he tries to kill himself. He faints and the entire 霹雳MIT crew find them and saves the day. The ending just show Lucifer and 007 together being all lovey dovey and Miss Cherry as the principal of the school. And in the very final scene we hear a voiceover, “You think it’s gameover? The game just started.”

I like the ending but... that only leads me to think of 2 things.

1. We have a new mastermind?

2. Lu Ke Ying was one of the Mastermind’s targets? And the REAL MASTERMIND hasn’t been caught yet?

I’m not sure which one it is. It might be because my Mandarin sucks and I might missed out on some of the details throughout the drama so I might not have understood everything. But overall, I’m pretty sure I caught everything because I didn’t fast forward anything. And if there was a word I didn’t understand, I would pause the drama and like look up the word to be sure.

I didn’t appreciate the 007 and Lucifer love line. They are cute together but Lucifer is just so dunce. I hate dramas where the girl is always like, “OH MY GOSH. I’m so stupid. I can’t do anything. Why do you like me?” *rolls eyes* BECAUSE HE’S STUPID TOO! Like really, WHY do you like her??? WHY?! She can’t do anything! Why do you love her? She ALMOST killed you! She has nothing to offer in the relationship! She just screams and cries. GAWD. SO ANNOYING. She does have her good moments when she’s taking care of him. I can see how much she truly loves him but Lucifer needs to grow up. I like the she acknowledges the fact that she’s stupid, lol. Now the second step would be to TRY to not be stupid. I would probably like Lucifer a lot more if she developed to be a stronger female character. I’m not expecting her to be a genius like him at the end or be able to keep herself completely out of trouble but I do expect her to be stronger and smarter... in some ways. You know? I also didn’t really want her to be involved in the whole Mastermind thing. It is definitely a twist, but a stupid one I thought. I wouldn’t mind if she is one of the people that the Mastermind decides to play with and make her do bad things. In fact, I think that would be a great way to show her growth and development. The drama could have really benefited from that. But to have Lucifer INVOLVED in the Mastermind’s plans to make everyone miserable... that’s ridiculous. And the whole time, she’s dedicated to catching the Mastermind? I don’t quite understand that. And the drama isn’t clear as to WHEN she found out that Lu Ke Ying is Mastermind. Was it from the very beginning at episode 1? Or did she only find out near the end?

The more I discuss about the drama, the more loopholes I see. Okay. Point of that entire upper paragraph is... Lucifer and 007 = no. ORRRRRR Lucifer needs to demonstrate character improvement to PROVE TO THE AUDIENCE that she deserves a guy like 007.

Miss Cherry didn’t really do much in the drama. At one point, Teacher Angel succeeds in disbanding the group and she sends Miss Cherry off to Africa to teach the children there O________o WTF?! YEAH. I KNOW. WTF?!

A lot of random stuff happens. I think what’s really important in a drama series is keeping to the plotline and development. Since dramas give scriptwriters an opportunity to really build on plot, characters and themes, it is easy to drift away from the main points and just add in random events to... I don’t know... liven up the plot. It’s hard to have “everything happens for a reason” theory applied to dramas because it’s so easy to stray from the backbone of the story.

I don’t like how Lu Ke Ying is revealed as the mastermind. They should’ve made it more dramatic and more unpredictable. I mean this ENTIRE drama is about 霹雳MIT hunting for this guy. In episode 15, they pretty much just give away the bad guy without much drumroll and so when the climax came... it is so boring.

The ideas are good. I think if I could remake a drama series, I would remake this one with all my improvements in it. LOL. It would be a much better watch. It would be different but the main concept of a bunch of students catching a mastermind would be there. I think 747 needed a bigger role in the series. Most of the time they just had him hopelessly in love with Lucifer. *rolls eyes*

Miss Cherry needs to be more useful too. Throughout the whole drama she’s just on an auction site buying stuff or she would be arguing with Teacher Angel. COME UP WITH SOME THEORIES. GO RUN WITH THE STUDENTS. Don’t just sit in your office the whole day and let the students run around doing all the investigating.

I don't know why but this picture says a thousand words. Their expressions totally show their
characters in the drama.

Overall out of 10, I would probably give this drama a 6/10. It wasn’t very satisfying. I was looking for something suspenseful and exciting but I got lame and well... more lame. I think the drama has really good ideas and the scriptwriter just didn’t have enough time to build on all those ideas. I know idol dramas are never really realistic, the most impossible thing happens and that’s why we LIKE watching them... because we can see the impossible happen, we can appreciate the fantasy world that’s built by the actors and the directors. However, when the fantasy world is broken by superficial thoughts, ideas and immature concepts... the fantasy world is broken and the audience is just watching a series of events that makes no sense. And we’re all left asking the question WHY?!

WHY does 007 like Lucifer? Why does Lu Ke Ying want to kill himself at the end? Why does the principal not favor his daughter over his love affair? If Lu Ke Ying wanted to know if his mother cared about him or not, why didn’t would he hurt other students if he, too, is looking for love? Why is he involved in other events if he’s the mastermind? Is it to throw off 霹雳MIT members? Why does Lucifer help Lu Ke Ying? Because she wants to know why her mother threw her away. But why stop helping then? Why back off? And the MAIN WHY QUESTION. WHY does Teacher Angel keep all this from her son? I mean, it’s not THAT big of a deal. He’s in UNIVERSITY FOR GOODNESS SAKES! He has the right to know that he has a twin! None of this makes any sense.

So I am very disappointed in this series. There were some really sweet scenes in the drama of 007 and Lucifer. Those are good. I like some of the scenes when 187 uses his network of girls to get information, lol.

This doesn’t compare to Bump Off Lover. Although Bump Off Lover is shorter, it is much more satisfying. This is just another typical, badly scripted idol drama.

The Karate Kid Review

I watched THE KARATE KID. I've never watched any of the previous renditions of it, so I had no idea what to expect. When the movie first started, I had no idea what direction the movie was going to take. It wasn't until the scene where Mr. Han approaches Master Li about how it is wrong to teach students Kung Fu to hurt others. And of course Master Li goes, "You can't just walk in here and tell me what to do and expect me to let you just walk out of here without a fight." I rolled my eyes at the overly used scene. Master Li continues, "Either you fight or the kid fights." It doesn't make sense to have Mr. Han, a retired-Kung-Fu-Master-now-maintenance man, fight Master Li's students and it surely doesn't make any sense for Xiao Dre, who can barely stand on his own two feet, to be battling highly trained students.

So Mr. Han goes, "The kid will fight at the tournament," as he signals the poster plastered on a wall of the studio.

And another cheesy threat follows by Master Li, "And if the kid doesn't show up. I will be sure to give both you and the kid a lot of pain." PUAHAHAHA. That's hilarious. WTF?!

So then the movie gains a sense of direction and everything starts to make sense. Mr. Han starts training this kid, who doesn't even know how to hang up his jacket, how to focus, be still, and all this boring crap on "life". I find it far-fetched when Mr. Han says, "Kung Fu is in everything around us. It's in everything we do. It's in how we live our lives." LIKE. SERIOUSLY?! And then he goes to show how the MOTION of taking OFF and putting ON a jacket can be used as a Kung Fu move. WTF?!?! It's cheesy but it fits the movie... I guess Jackie Chan can pull off an incredibly scene.

Jaden Smith is not a bad actor at all for his age. The casting seemed pretty decent. I like the Chinese bully. I don't like his character but I thought the actor, who plays it, does a really good job at making me hate him. Xiao Dre's love interest... didn't really work for me. Why pick a girl taller than him? WHY?! And besides, I thought they could've picked a more pretty and cute girl in China. She wasn't bad but something about her doesn't shout, "Hey. I'm playing a violin. I'm so pretty that I can catch you attention right away. Come over and hit on me." LOL.

There were some pretty impressive scenes of Xiao Dre training. In the middle of the movie, there's a scene where Mr. Han is all depressed about his dead wife and kid. They died in a car accident years ago and I'm guessing it changed him forever. Xiao Dre comforts him and teaches him how to "get up and move on". Lame. Very lame. Jackie Chan did an amazing job with the scene, Jaden Smith proved to be mature enough to handle a scene like that... but the way it was written into the script is so ridiculous. Why does Mr. Han need to have a downfall? To show that he's human? Or is it to give Xiao Dre and opportunity to help him and so it demonstrates a symbiotic teacher-student relationship? I don't buy it. Too far-fetched. Too random. Too cliche.

The ending is very cliche as well. Of course, Xiao Dre wins the competition and the Chinese bully has so much respect for him that he was take the award away from the judge and personally hand it over toe Xiao Dre as if to say, "You won fair and square. I have so much respect for you. I will never bully you again." And then all of Master Li's students go and bow to Mr. Han. WTF?! If I were Master Li, I'd go and hack all their heads off for disrespecting me and for not giving me "face" in front of so many people. But I guess... they wanted this to be a family movie so good HAS TO triumph over evil and save the day.

There's this really good scene near the end, where Xiao Dre gets injured and Mr. Han takes him backstage and tells him that he should just be proud for making it to the finals and he should just forfeit now before he gets even more injured. Xiao Dre INSISTS that he needs to go back out there and finish the battle. And Mr. Han asks, "Give me a good reason why you have to go back out there. Why must you go back out?" And Xiao Dre goes, "Because I'm still scared. After today, when I leave here, I don't want to be scared anymore." He's referring to being bullied by kids. And by winning this competition, he would no longer be afraid of them since he's proven to them and himself that he's capable of standing up for himself. Another really cheesy scene but very smoothly executed by Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. Those two, surprisingly, have amazing chemistry. But then again, I think Jackie Chan has the ability to create chemistry between any kid he has to act with. I'm not sure how he does it... but it works. I think he makes a good dorky fatherly figure. I think he doesn't seem like the type who can pull off a fatherly character but actually can...

Overall, I would watch the movie again. Cheesy but... it makes you feel good at the end of the movie... like any Jackie Chan movie. I don't know why I love Jackie Chan movies so much, probably because of all his Chinglish humor that's incorporated into the script.

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.