The Gamer’s Litter Box

Just received a press release from UIP Malaysia that they will be bringing in the Kaiji Live Action movie this March 11th, 2010. Sweet! With the Eva 2.0 movie also screening in the same month and an upcoming May’N concert, it looks like March is going to be an entertaining month for Malaysian anime and manga fans.

A bloody mess in more ways than one.

Where do I start? The wooden acting? The Engrish lines? Poorly edited fighting and story scenes? The incredibly obvious CG blood and monsters? Or the stupifying ending that left half the audience speechless? It’s all of them, really. Continue Reading »

I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately (just yesterday I watched The International) and the latest one to get my attention is the upcoming premiere of LaMB, which will be broadcasted on Animax-Asia this March 24th. Animax has been hyping LaMB quite a bit as it’s the company’s first high definition animated film. Not only that, the script was prepared by one of the finalists of the Animax 2007 Pan-Asia Animation competition heralding from the Philippines while its production was done by Singaporean studio Peach Blossom Media. Earlier this evening, some media and invited guests got a sneak peek of the movie before it premieres across the region next week.

In general, I think the film was okay. Not spectacular, but okay. I like the story and although the script has a familiar ring of protagonists finding love and redemption after a tragic accident, the movie was still entertaining. But its really short screen time (approximately 45 minutes!) didn’t allow the characters’ backgrounds and story world of LaMB to be fully fleshed out. Yes, viewers who want more information on the world of Ceras can visit the official website to view the web manga. But how many will do so? Most viewers would straight away watch the movie first.

I also have some qualms about the animation quality in LaMB. LaMB’s art style uses a combination of 3D graphics and Flash animation; for the most part of the show, the art style works to paint a believable sci-fi world. However at times, the characters’ animations looked jerky and unnatural, especially when the characters are doing a normal walk or are talking. I don’t believe the jerky animation in LaMB is due to the limitations of Flash - I’ve seen some fantastic Flash animations on Newgrounds, and even on some local cartoon TV series using Flash. Perhaps the studio isn’t that experienced with handling realistic character movements in animated films? Furthermore for a “HD” animated film, the visuals in LaMB looked grainy than sharp. I think it’s because the visuals in LaMB aren’t optimized for cinema theatres.

The main characters’ voice work in LaMB is generally good, with Vaness Wu giving a solid performance as Jack Grisworld. I can’t really say the same about the peripheral characters such as the various soldiers, scientists, and even Keiko’s parents as their dialogue sounds uninspiring. Later on in the film, there is a major battle scene which felt odd to me because both fighters don’t utter a single word. I understand that their characters aren’t allowed to speak, but couldn’t they grunt or cry out in pain as they trade blows? Or maybe a little dialogue to show their motivations for fighting? The near silence during the fighting scene felt quite weird to witness in the theatre.

This is not to say that LaMB is a bad movie. The story in LaMB is good, and the voice acting (sans the peripheral characters) were solid. The 3D visuals were adequate but the animation could definitely use some improvement. If Animax-Asia were to broadcast another locally-produced animated film, I’d defintely watch it. Hopefully the premiere of LaMB this March 24th will spearhead the development of more cross-regional productions.

I knew Dragon Ball: Evolution movie was going to suck, so I was prepared for all sorts of major suckage. And true enough, it didn’t disappoint in this department. Some observations:

• What’s up with Chow Yuen Fatt’s way of talking? Throughout the movie, he looked like he just chewed on a whole plate of spicy chillies.
• Justin Chatwin’s acting was actually okay, especially in the beginning. But later on, he starts to sound very monotone when he talks about finding the Dragon Balls with Chow Yuen Fatt, like he’s reading someone’s cue card offscreen.
• Yumcha has the worst American hick accent I’ve ever heard. It’s like a bastard child of an Australian and a redneck.
• I could hardly make out Piccolo’s “clones” when they fought Goku underground. No wait, scratch that - I couldn’t see jack shit. I guess they ran out of budget rendering their faces.
• Really, really crappy, amateur editing near the end of the movie, showing the transition of Oozaru to Goku. I guess they again ran out of budget here too.
• The World Martial Arts Tournament scene got only 2 minutes of screentime, lol. They might as well not include it at all.

So in the end, what has the Dragon Ball: Evolution movie taught me? It taught me that years of fighting experience and training can be skipped as long as there is the allure of a hot girl promising to snog you at the end of your training. Sex is the greatest motivator!

“It also looks like the King of Fighters movie will introduce a new science fiction spin into the setting established in the games’ universe by following the surviving members of three legendary fighting clans who are continually whisked away to other dimensions by an evil power. As the fighters enter each new world they battle that universe’s native defenders, while the force that brought them seeks to find a way to invade and infect our world.”

Source: Movieset

For fucks sake, why must they go do a Mortal Kombat rip-off and put in a new plot? The Orochi storyline is perfect fodder for a movie, and you pull this sci-fi bullshit on us??? Not even the weak NESTS story had this lame cross dimensional bullshit.

Christ, what a way for the KOF Live Action Movie to debut.

In the last couple weeks, two particular noteworty movies based on games have been unleashed to the mainstream public. The first one was Max Payne, which I just saw yesterday. Another one is Resident Evil: Degeneration, which will see a 2-week limited release at selected cinemas in Japan this month with the North American version debuting this December.

Let’s talk about the Max Payne movie adaptation first. For the most part, I enjoyed the movie despite the clunky acting. Mark Wahlberg’s constant stony expression and the lack of narration from his point of view (only present in the beginning and near the end of the movie) only makes his character appear flat. There were some departures from the game’s original story (e.g. the absence of the mob boss and the special agent) but for the most part the movie was faithful to the source material.

Max Payne is visually quite attractive, evoking memories of Sin City. Although it has a PG13 rating, Max Payne is graphically and suggestively violent. The lack of blood showing feels odd (for e.g. Max punches one guy silly, yet he has nary a trickle of blood on his face) but it didn’t detract from the movie too much. Max Payne could have done with more shootouts though, as the setup during the first half of the movie was slow and plodding.

On the 2nd day of the TGS2008, the press had the opportunity to watch Resident Evil: Degeneration, a new CG animated movie that serves to bridge Resident Evil 4 and the upcoming Resident Evil 5 next year. I must say that both me and my Singapore colleague were quite disappointed with the results. The character animation were stiff and the character faces look unnatural, probably due to the Uncanny Valley. In fact, having recently viewed Final Fantasy: Spirits Within on Blu-ray, I couldn’t help but think that FF:SW had better graphics, animation, and voice work - even for a 7-year old title. And don’t get me started on Degeneration’s poor pacing and laughable “emotional” scenes.

Before the start of the movie, the director was on stage to tell us not to post spoilers on who the villain is. Really, you won’t need anyone to tell you who the bad guy is. His first appearance in the movie screams “I AM SOOOOO THE ASSHOLE IN THIS MOVIE”, and if you’re expecting some sort of ‘twist’ to this movie, you won’t really be getting it. Degeneration feels more like a bunch of cutscenes that came from a panned Resident Evil game, stringed together as a full-length movie.

Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo, aka The Girl who Leapt Through Time will be part of the Japanese Film Festival that will be screening in selected GSC cineplexes. Although I’ve already watched it and the movie is a couple years old, I plan to watch it again at the cineplex this weekend. It’s a great movie, and it deserves to be watched on the big screen.

I’m not familiar with the other movies listed in the film festival, though Fourteen and Tony Takitani interests me. I’ll see if I can make time for these two movies.

GSC Japanese Film Festival

The long Wesak weekend provided me an opportunity to marathon watch Hayate no Gotoku. I also managed to catch up with Code Geass R2, Soul Eater, and Kurenai. Alas, I’m ashamed to say that I’m now watching Shugo Chara, a magical girl series about a girl with three guardian eggs. I’m still staying the hell away from Kanokon though. The increase in ecchiness in the latest episode more or less affirms that I’m unlikely to enjoy this series, even though the show features experienced seiyuus.

I guess you could call me a fan service snob, but I’ve always derived more pleasure out of such scenes when they aren’t so blatant. I used to enjoy them a few years back, but they’re growing old for me. Or maybe I’m growing too old for them. I’m even lamenting the lack of strong male characters in the upcoming Soul Calibur IV; when I was a teen, I’d drool at the prospect of a new female characters but now, the lineup of new characters almost seem like a tit fest just to pander to a particular demographic (though Oh! Great’s contribution looks really neat).

I watched Speed Racer earlier this evening and although I like the movie in general, I didn’t like how the Wachowski Brothers pulled off some of the racing scenes. Most of the time I was able to follow most of the action but others it was just plain confusing. I think this is mostly due to them throwing so much technicolor razzle-dazzle that it became hard to see what was going on. In fact the races flew so fast that it felt like the blur filter was constantly on.

Also, Spritle and the chimp are annoying as hell. I swear to God I wanted to bitchslap their faces everytime they appeared on screen. The movie would be a lot better if they weren’t around.