Random Entertainment Topic

i might watch this tonight... never heard of this film before so shall be going in completely blind (except for seeing the poster); south korean movies usually have a pacey/actiony style that can be relied on. i watched lone survivor last night and that was damn actiony lol, though fairly ridiculous. by the way good idea on the movie club :)
 
Thought this was going to be The New World.

Glad it's something I haven't seen before, I'll watch it next time I can stay up to the wee hours.
 
WAIT WHAT???????????????????? I was thinking of The New World by Terrence Malick before I entered this thread, this is totally, totally unexpected.

Anyways, to give you guys some idea, forget that this was made in Korea or anything. This is basically Infernal Affairs/The Departed meets The Godfather meets pretty much any famous undercover movies and gangster movies you have ever seen. I have no idea why this movie still has a huge following among fellow Koreans (especially with certain types of female audiences that are obsessed with homosexual relationships when it's not that evident) and it is not the most original film ever made, quite the opposite, but the result is solid to say the least.
 
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just finished watching it.
Solid movie, good acting but ….it all seemed familiar.

agreed. and 'familiar' isnt necessarily a negative attribute imo, but the general plot was recognisable (reminded of the departed). what surprised me was how little action there was, i was expecting more considering the opening but it carried on and kept its dialogue heavy routine and really focused on plot unfoldings (saying that, the most heavy-action scene in the film -- the carpark fight - was fairly rubbish anyway). and i didnt mind either, because it was intriguing enough to keep my attention. i think the pacing helped with that as it kept consistently moving. also, the soundtrack kicked ass, very subdued and light, but kicked in at just the rights time (dat flute); funny enough i swear its a remix of a track ive heard before, so even the soundtrack sounded familiar.

so yeah, it did the job, but it never pushed any bounds. very enjoyable for what it set out to do

7/10
 
Any Top Gear fans?

New season about to kick off.

I love this show even though I'm not a gear head, I admire great cars though and the show is produced so well and the formula of the show is still pretty refreshing compared to what else is on TV these days.

Just thought I'd start a topic on it.

What does the new season behold? Anyone know who the star in a reasonably priced car is for tomorrow's show?

How will they address the Schumacher situation? Just a word from JC or full tribute?

Also, always great music in the shows soundtrack.

finalgear.com is a great site to get full information on the show btw if you're not living in the UK but want to follow along without much delay.
 
Is great to have the show back. Only 7 episodes though. However, they do have special again this season. Hope it is better than the last one where they tried to find the origin of the river Nile.

No clue on the star in the POS car.
 
Which one were you most reminded of? To me the final act seemed all too much like The Godfather.
it reminded me most of the departed, and yes the ending felt so easily plagiarized. Although i didn't realize the homoerotic undertone until you mentioned it. now that i think about it, there were clues of this everywhere.
I thought that Lee ja-Sung was the least likable character in the movie. He moped about, complained all the time, and it certainly was a surprise to me that he was able to turn the tables so easily.

agreed. and 'familiar' isnt necessarily a negative attribute imo, but the general plot was recognisable (reminded of the departed). what surprised me was how little action there was, i was expecting more considering the opening but it carried on and kept its dialogue heavy routine and really focused on plot unfoldings (saying that, the most heavy-action scene in the film -- the carpark fight - was fairly rubbish anyway). and i didnt mind either, because it was intriguing enough to keep my attention. i think the pacing helped with that as it kept consistently moving. also, the soundtrack kicked ass, very subdued and light, but kicked in at just the rights time (dat flute); funny enough i swear its a remix of a track ive heard before, so even the soundtrack sounded familiar.

so yeah, it did the job, but it never pushed any bounds. very enjoyable for what it set out to do

7/10
Yea, i would give it a 7/10 too. But since The Departed is a remake of the korean made Infernal Affairs. this felt so much like a knockoff of a knockoff. I always expect to be wowed by well rated SKorean movies and this just didn't do it for me.
 
it reminded me most of the departed, and yes the ending felt so easily plagiarized. Although i didn't realize the homoerotic undertone until you mentioned it. now that i think about it, there were clues of this everywhere.
I thought that Lee ja-Sung was the least likable character in the movie. He moped about, complained all the time, and it certainly was a surprise to me that he was able to turn the tables so easily.

Yea, i would give it a 7/10 too. But since The Departed is a remake of the korean made Infernal Affairs. this felt so much like a knockoff of a knockoff. I always expect to be wowed by well rated SKorean movies and this just didn't do it for me.

Oh well, not all Asian countries are the same! Infernal Affairs is a Hong Kong film.

That said, I don't think Ja-sung is the least likeable of the three. Not to criticize you, but that's the way I and many audiences understood. We all know who the screenplay wants us to like, that would be Chung easily, but the movie focuses a lot on how $hitty a situation Lee is in. One that gets disliked to many is the lieutenant (played by the great Choi Min-sik of Oldboy) since he risks Ja-sung's life and never lets him go, paving way to the eventual betrayal.

Hence the homoerotic rave from certain audiences I guess, movie makes the two lead likeable and understood while relatively villifying the remaining one. Actually, the actor that played Ja-sung, Lee Jung-jae, totally rejuvinated his career after this film. He was a handsome and iconic actor of late 90s and early 2000s, went silent for several years, came back in Choi Dong-hoon's blockbuster film Thieves (2012) just to play a puny and disloyal thief, and then New World suddenly put him back to the coolness of his best days. So people liked him, oh yeah.

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One question I have to everyone. Well last time it seemed like my claims on the form of Upstream Color spiked the difficulty bar too much, which makes me a little careful this time, but let's just go ahead. Anybody felt distracted by heavy use of close-up? This was something that many reviewers pointed out in a carefully positive note. Usually the good dialogue scene moves back and forth to grab the whole space and objects, catching certain details with effective close-ups from time to time. But lots of films just heavily rely on close-ups when they shoot and edit dialogue scenes, to a level that the sequence turns into a whole bunch of talking head.

Now, New World uses A LOT of close-ups, and it rarely moves back. Most of the shots in this film are big ones (extreme long/long shots) or small ones (close-up on actors' face), and there are very few mid-sized shots that give us the whole picture in certain sequences. It should be negative, but it doesn't. It induces slight headache combined with 150 minutes of running time, but I felt that somehow it worked without in-between sized shots. So, did you guys notice the high count of close-ups? If so, what do you feel about it?
 
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sorry about that. i could of sworn infernal affairs was Korean. my bad.
still, the plot line left a lot to be desired. I would have liked to have seen Ja-sung at least show (other than the opening scene) how he rose among the ranks so quickly in 5 years(or did i miss something?) . granted i was slightly distracted for the first 15 minutes of the movie.

edit: "could of" lol. could have. I'm losing proper grammar.
 
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I like Top Gear, though I haven't had the chance to watch it all that much as of late.

An oldie, but one of my favorites, cars and episodes:
 
Well the first show I enjoyed, but it lacked the usual testing of a supercar but surely that will come in following episodes.

Looks like from a montage on the upcoming season they showed that they'll be going to Chernobyl. I'm excited for that!

And yeah they've got pretty sweet jobs getting to drive the most amazing cars in the world and travel all over and I'm sure they're paid pretty well on top of it!
 
Longest seasons in history? ;) I know Family Guy just recently hit 15 years. That's a long time. Same with The Simpson (probably more than 15yrs)