The Fast & Furious Incident

Just arrived Labuan yesterday and the hustle and bustle of work re-starts once again. Sigh. How upsetting. But luckily the weekend in KL was a pretty good trip. Relaxing and enjoying. Tell you about it later. Saw 2 movies over the weekend in KL, the ‘Shinjuku Incident’ and ‘Fast & Furious’. How was it? Weeeeeeeell…here’s a quickie on the movies:

‘The Shinjuku Incident’

Bottom-line: Just so-so. Nothing outstanding. If you didn’t know it already, this is not a typical Jackie Chan action flick. It’s a drama. So no flying kicks and dragon pushes. Just plain acting from Jackie. And the acting from him is…bad. Sorry Jackie fans but this latest effort from him just didn’t cut it for me. Monotonous acting right from the start, I still think Jackie should stick back to what he does best: kicking ass. Ok, so he is not young anymore. But so what? Clint Eastwood is as old as the Himalayas but he still looks cool and wiping badness off its feet in ‘Gran Torino’. I would love to see Jackie direct a Hong Kong movie, go back to his roots and rejuvenate Hong Kong cinema once more. It’s time to pass on that cinema magic to someone else, Jackie!! But back to Shinjuku, it’s nothing we have not seen before. The way they operate as gangs and their modus operandi etc etc etc are all ‘been there, done that’ kinda feel. Story, normal. Acting, normal. Action, normal. All this make me feel short-changed. I’ll just download this if I were you.

Verdict: 5/10


‘Fast & Furious’

It started off really good. The opening sequence was very Vin Diesel (and very typical of ‘The Fast and the Furious’ cool). But it lamed off in the end. Ran out of gas (and ideas) in the end perhaps. This was supposed to be the grand re-introduction of Vin Diesel back to the action genre (he will be re-appearing in action flicks that made him the badass he is today, next up will be the sequel to ‘The Chronicles of Riddick’). But he too lamed off as the movie progressed as there was not enough one-liners to keep him in the cool and not enough slick moves. I actually expected abit more from Vin Diesel. Overall, the action is indeed fast and furious, plenty of car chases and most importantly, it has well directed car chases. In truth, crashed cars never looked so good. The director, Justin Lin (a Taiwanese director, born in Orange County California and popular for his film ‘Better Luck Tomorrow’) did a better job this time around compared to his ‘F&F: Tokyo Drift’ debut. I know some may disagree that Tokyo Drift might be better, but I think this time around the action is more intense, more well-edited and more complete as an action movie. And yeah, Vin Diesel and Paul Walker is reunited once more, but…I don’t think there’s any chemistry between them whatsoever, and Paul is as ‘kayu’ as ever. This movie is worth a watch but shame about the ending, it could have been much better.

Verdict: 7/10