MOVIE REVIEW : A+
I have recently watched a really good Chinese film named “Red Cliff“, and this is probably one of the best movies I have ever watched. I normally don’t watch Chinese film too often, since Chinese film has always give me a bad impression about how ridicule they can make the story line look like and the computer effect that they used in the movie is kind of suck compare to Hollywood.
However, Red cliff is different.
Red Cliff (Chinese: 赤壁), also known as The Battle of Red Cliff, is a Chinese epic film based on the Battle of Red Cliffs and events during the end of the Han Dynasty and immediately prior to the period of the Three Kingdoms in ancient China.
If you are Chinese, or if you know any story of Three Kingdoms《三國志》, you will definitely like this movie.
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Here are some movie intro from Wikipedia.com
The film is expected to be released in two versions. Within Asia, Red Cliff was released in two parts, totaling over four hours in length. The first part was released in July 2008 and the second in January 2009. Outside of Asia, a single 2½ hour film will be released in 2009, according to the source from Wikipedia.
The film was directed by John Woo, and stars Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen, Hu Jun, Lin Chi-ling and Zhao Wei. With an estimated budget of US$80 million, Red Cliff is the most expensive Asian-financed film to date. The first part of the movie alone grossed out $124 million in Asia and broke the box office record previously held by Titanic in mainland China.[4]
Director John Woo said in an interview with CCTV-6 that the film will use primarily the historical record Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms as a blueprint for the Battle of Red Cliffs, rather than the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. As such, traditionally vilified characters such as Cao Cao and Zhou Yu will be given a more historically accurate treatment in the film.
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Of course, now you can watch Part 1 and 2 of this movie via online streaming program such as PP Stream (That’s where I watch it :D)
PP stream is a Chinese peer-to-peer streaming video network software. Since the target user is in Chinese mainland, and oversea Chinese, therefore, the software is only in Chinese. The software is pretty handy though, cause you get to watch almost all American TV series, just like how Hulu.com works, but PP Stream has more choices.
Click here for direct download of PP Stream Software.
Thank you for reading and I hope you will like this movie as much as I do. 
April 25th,2009
movies | tags:
movie,
red cliff |
1 Comment
The result of UFC 97
Main Card
- Light Heavyweight bout:
Steve Cantwell vs. 
Luiz Arthur Cane
- Cane defeated Cantwell via unanimous decision (29-28, 30-27, 30-27).
- Heavyweight bout:
Cheick Kongo vs. 
Antoni Hardonk
- Kongo defeated Hardonk via TKO (strikes) at 2:29 of round 2.
- Light Heavyweight bout:
Krzysztof Soszynski vs. Brian Stann
- Soszynski defeated Stann via submission (kimura) at 3:53 of round 1.
- Light Heavyweight bout: Chuck Liddell vs. Mauricio Rua
- Rua defeated Liddell via TKO (strikes) at 4:28 of round 1.
- Lightweight bout:
Sam Stout vs. Matt Wiman
- Stout defeated Wiman via unaninmous decision (29-28, 29-28, 29-28).
- Middleweight Championship bout: Anderson Silva vs. Thales Leites
- Silva defeated Leites via unanimous decision (49-46, 48-47, 50-46) to retain the Middleweight Championship title.
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After writing out my prediction of UFC 97 couple weeks ago, my prediction was partially correct, but I didn’t expect this UFC event in Montreal can be so lame. I would like to say it is the worst ever. Especially the main event of the evening, where Anderson Silva fought 5 rounds straight (Championship bout is 5×5 minutes round) with lacking of his engagement and execution into the fight. Even though Silva won the fight by unanimous decision over Thales, he shouldn’t be proud of himself as all. Also, it is obvious that in order to make Silva into his only chance to win. UFC needs to push some of the more offensive fighters into the title contention picture, but it definitely has to be striker type fighter like Wanderlei Silva, but not BJJ type fighters like Thales and Damian Maia.
After UFC 97’s terrible main event, you can also tell that Thales is an one-dimensional fighter whose game plan is setting the trap to let his opponent to fall into, especially from where we can see him flop to the ground countless times to setup a Jiu jitsu game. On the other hand, Silva lets Thales got up after everytime he flops seems like his intentions to make Thales looks bad, because if Silva is what so called pound-for-pound fighter, he should be able to finish Thales even though he is on the ground. Both fighters made the main event seems like a dancing game in the cage.
However, the co-main event is slightly better than the main event, at least you get to see the fighters trading punches and KO win by Shogun was pretty impressive and unpredictable. But it is kind of surprise to see it ended in the very first round, where Chuck barely touched Shogun. On top of that, Chuck Liddell’s retirement after the fight from UFC is also a big news in MMA world. But it is what it is in MMA world, after you lose for a few fights streak, you are out of this game. I’m never a Liddell’s fan, but I always enjoy watching him exchange with the fighter in the cage, therefore, it is kind of sad to see a legend leaving the ring like that.
On the post fight press conference of UFC 97, Dana White has come out publicly stating the matchup was “embarrassing” in an interview with Steve Cofield. The big question coming out of the interview and event is how the UFC should react, and what can be done to bolster a more exciting matchup for Anderson Silva.
The following is the video of Dana White’s apologize to the fans…
Dana White Apologize to UFC 97
“Silva embarrassed me, I wanted to leave” - Dana White
X-men Origins: Wolverine Premiere: April 29, 2009
Star Trek Premiere: May 7, 2009
Terminator salvation Premiere: May 21, 2009
Transformer : Revenge of the Fallen (2009) Premiere: June 24, 2009
Of course, I will sure write a post for every movie that I watch this Summer 
Stay Tune !!
Thanks in advance
UFC 97
Next Saturday, April 18 is going to be my another high anticipated UFC event.
The features bouts would be :
Main Event: Middleweight Championship : Anderson “The Spider” Silva vs Thales Leites
- Is really good to see my my all-time favorite Anderson Silva to fight again His last fight TKO against Patrick Cote is really disappointing me, and hopefully this time he will be ready to come out and do his things.
- Thales Leiters - Sorry, he is not even close to Anderson Silva, at least his resume in MMA not convincing enough to make me think he stands any chance for winning the fight. But sh*t happens in MMA, anybody can be knock out within split second.
**My prediction : Silva KTFO Leiters
Co-main Event: Light Heavyweight bout: Chuck “Ice Man” Liddell vs. Mauricio “Shogun” Rua
- Hopefully Chuck Liddell won’t get caught this time like in his last fight. I think he is still competitive in this sport as long as he can improve his style to be more defendsive.
- Shogun’s last two fights tell me he is out of shapre and going downhill. I think most people feel the same way too. But if he can brings out his A game like in “Pride”. He can definitely win the fight. Hopefully his cardio is back.
** I’m big fan of both fighters so I don’t really root for anyone of them. I wish I can see three rounds of non-stop striking between the two. On top of that, that is how both of them can guarantee their place in UFC. Otherwise, one of them who lose the fight will possibly goes down to the bottom of ranking after this fight.
The co-main event (Chuck vs Shogun) seems more exciting for me, since both are high profile fighters and this fight is regarded as “fight of their career”
For the main event, I would like to see Anderson silva win the fight, and move up to 205 lbs in his next fight to fight the winner of “Iceman vs Shogun” or “Henderson vs Bisping”.
Operator : Hello, this is Michael speaking. What is the matter?
Katrina: Yes…uhh my friend has been in a car accident
Operator: OK and where is the accident?
Katrina: She is near the intersection of Greene Drive.
Operator: Is she injured?
Katrina: Yes
Operator: How many people are in the accident?
Katrina: 2
Operator: Where does she hurt?
Katrina: Her head hurts
Operator: How about the other person
Katrina: I think she has diarrhea
Operator: Uhh..OK. Ok now, go to your friend and ask her “What day is today? Where you at and how many fingers you are holding in her face?”
Katrina: I would if I could but I can’t because I’m at home, my friend told me to call 911.
Operator: Ma’am . Why didn’t she call herself?
Katrina: Because she has a sore throat too.
Operator: Ma’am I’m guessing you are American. This is the Philiphines and if you call 911 then you are ordering Pizza, you need to call 411.
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I took this script from my friend’s homework, and where she had to write a dialog in Spanish, I think it is sort of funny.
It is not base on the true story (of course not) but according to her, it is true that if you call 911 in Philippines, you are calling to pizza hut and 411 to the police
Cheers !
It has been a while since I posted my last blog, the last post was way before I traveled back home to Malaysia by the end of February.
I don’t know what the dilemma is, ever since I came back, I don’t see the motivation to write my blog anymore.
Is it because there will be too much to write about, or probably is because I just don’t feel that comfortable to reveal my thoughts and feelings to others anymore.
Blogging daily seems impossible to me, because it is like a commitment.
Well, let’s see how much I can do
I think it is very appropriate if i write a little bit about my hobby here in my blog.
Guitar has always been something that I wanted to learn since I was young, I remembered I have no clue about guitar when I purchased my very first guitar, I was 13.
Without any guidance from anybody, I tried to play for a few times by myself, and after unable to play any rhythm, I gave up.
I just let my guitar sit there, rusted and frayed. And I believe my mom has thrown that broken guitar away already.
According to grandma, my dad’s used to be a country’s club singer back in Malaysia way before I was born. So, I think as the son of the guitarist singer, I shouldn’t be too bad either.
However, 3 years ago, when I first came to the United States, I found my dad’s guitar in my sister’s house, it is a solid black color guitar with rusted strings. There was the time where the real guitar journey begins.
Ever since then, I started practicing guitar by myself through Youtube’s online guitar tutorial. Besides, there is also one very important man I am thankful of, his name is Michael, a great friend of our family in United States who gave me many free lessons.
If I would describe my self as a plant, he is the one who dropped the seed in the soil and watered it for the first time for me. I don’t think any individual would be succeed without a mentor behind them.
I still vividly remember the very first song that I learn from him was finger picking style of “Dust in the Wing”, a song where the flow of the melody match beautifully with the lyrics itself.
That was the time I start getting serious to learn guitar, I have learned many of the basic entry level songs at first. Of course, anyone who have learned guitar knows how painful your finger tips would be when you first start learning the chord. But “no pain, no gain”, there is no shortcut in learning
The learning curve of guitar is pretty steep, but after all, it pays off.
Now I can easily grab my guitar and play some songs whenever I want, I won’t call myself an expert or pro yet, but I’m at least an amateur now
Guitar had changed my life ever since
- It accompanied me throughout many sleepless nights.
- Talk to me while there is no word for my feelings.
- It taught me practice makes perfect.
- It taught me the principle of life, where patient and determination will payoff at the end of the day.
February 17th,2009
Hobbies | tags:
guitar |
4 Comments
I always want to write a post to dedicate to my idol in MMA, but I always seems to forget it.
Before I forget it this time. I’m going to go ahead write it out.
I have been following up the MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) sports and the story line since the last couple years ago. Checking on the latest news and events of MMA seems to be my daily routine now on google reader as well.
It is a pretty addicting sports I would say.
IF you are ever a MMA fan, you should/definitely know who is Fedor “The Last Emperor” Emelianenko.
As a hardcore MMA fan, in my own fighter’s ranking, Fedor is the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world.
First of all, let me give you a brief idea who Fedor Emelianenko is.
Fedor is a Russian Heavyweight mixed martial artist, and current World Alliance of Mixed Martial Arts Heavyweight Champion and the last holder of Pride Heavyweight Championship.
He is also considered as the best heavyweight fighter in the world for the last six years by many major publications.
According to wikipedia:
“He is known for his ability to dominate fights using his opponents’ strengths, creating an “aura” of fear around him, that he can defeat anyone from any position. He has been called a “machine” and “not human” throughout his career.”
What make Fedor different is he does not do what most fighters do. Fighters normally like to trash talk, showing disrespectful behaviors and find excuse when they lose.
Even though, Fedor is undefeated, but he never claim himself a legend or the best in the world, but he already is as most people know.
Fedor caught my attention again lately due to his previous performance against Andrei “Pit Bull” Arlovski, in “Affliction:Day of Reckoning”. Fedor impressed me as he normally does, the one left hook KO over the flying-knee-Arlovski in the air told United States’ MMA fans who he is.
Sometimes, Fedor gives people a fault impressive from his look, “can that bold, chubby, and emotionless fighter fight?” sort of question will probably come to your mind as most people see him.
But the only fighter that can deliver a good fight, humble, classy, respectful in MMA.
It has to be “Fedor Emelianenko”
Movie Rating : C
I have watched this movie last Saturday in theater with my friends.
After watched this lame movie, I really wish I can get my money back.
Also, I just knew that this movie is another Hollywood remake of Korean horror movie “A Tale of Two Sisters”
I have not watch the original version of this movie (I guess it must be good movie in Asia otherwise won’t be remake), but I believe the original one should be better than Hollywood’s.
I found this movie pretty dull, other than a couple scary scenes that will frightening you with sound effect. And the storyline is just so-so.
I was expecting the whole time for the twist of the ending. The ending did surprise me a little bit, but it is not as surprise as what I have expected.
I think Hollywood is capable to make the movie better.
If you are looking forward to see this movie. I would advice you don’t waste your money or wait until the movie out on DVD, or maybe should watch other movie instead.
