King of Beggars

King of Beggars tends to be too talkative for people that don't understand Chinese, especially in the first third of the movie. The middle of the film shows Chow using his charm and showcasing his acting skills as well as some decent tournament action. The last part of the film goes a little into crazy land so it is not as exciting or entertaining. Chow's movies typically get too crazy at the end.

Sharla Cheung is beautiful as always. She is retired from the movie business now and I hope she is doing well in life.

CJ7

Hot Asian dadday, Stephen Chow, follows up his masterpiece Kung Fu Hustle with CJ7. I am sad to say the this drama will disappoint most people. Chow is pretty subdued here and there is not much to laugh about or get excited about in this film. It's not a very commercial film.

Note: I saw the English dubbed version on cable.

Invisible Traget (2007)

Invisible Target is a typical HK action film about cops vs. bad guys starring Nicholas Tse, Shawn Yue, and Jaycee Chan (son of Jackie Chan) but the real star is Jacky Wu Jing as the cool as ice baddie.

The film doesn't break any new ground or show you anything that you haven't seen before but that doesn't mean that it isn't fun at moments. The action scenes are typical HK action scenes but that is a good thing. The film can be hard to watch at times, especially when they are doing melodramatic acting scenes. In the case of Jaycee Chan, the apple seems to have fallen far from the tree. He is not a fighter and is somewhat effeminate. In all fairness he shouldn't have to be like his father. I hope he will find happiness for being his own man.

I think Invisible Target was made to showcase cute young boys but you may want to take a look, especially if you are a fan of Wu Jing.

Love & Pop (1998)

I just saw the region 1 DVD of Love & Pop released by Kino. I rented this film because of the packaging which is very misleading. The DVD package art makes it appear to be an erotic film. It couldn't be further from the truth.

Love & Pop is an art film directed by anime director Hideaki Anno. He shot Love & Pop using little, consumer Sony mini DV cameras. He makes the most of them by creatively putting them in crazy places which is interesting but can get annoying after awhile. I have to wonder if the makers of the Crank films watched Love & Pop because they look pretty similar.

Anyway, Love & Pop is too long and is mainly just watching teenage girls hangout, not doing too much interesting stuff. I think the fancy camera work is trying to compensate for the lack of action being done by the actors. Also, the film is neither sexy nor shocking.

That being said, there are a few good things going on with Love & Pop. If nothing else, it was a good experiment with digital video.

On a side note there is a music video on the disc that looks like it has better video quality than the actual film. In the video, the girls go to a nice beach and have fun. On the DVD cover you see the girls in bikinis. That picture is taken from the music video. They don't really appear in bikinis in the movie.

The Iron-Fisted Monk (1977)

Sammo Hung makes his directorial debut in 1977's The Iron-Fisted Monk. If you like old-school fu, then you should check out this film. If you are looking for realistic fighting, look somewhere else.

Be warned, this film contains a pretty graphic rape scene that is pretty shocking.

Also, Chen Sing is really great as a shaolin monk.

If you want to see this film be sure to get the DVD released by Twentieth Century Fox. The picture quality is second to none and it has great audio with excellent English dubbing. It is another excellent job by Fox.

Rob-B-Hood aka Robin-B-Hood (2006)

Jackie Chan rehashes Three Men and a Baby and fails to impress in this Hong Kong-made effort.

I should note that I did not see the Dragon Dynasty release of this film. Instead I finally popped in a pirated DVD that I bought in Asia a couple years ago. It took me that long to get to the boredom level that I would actually watch a movie co-starring a baby.

Rob-B-Hood also stars Michael Hui who worked with Jackie in the Cannonball Run films and Louis Koo who's job is mainly to look cute which he accomplishes.

The few action scenes are ok but nothing special.
This movie can get disturbing at times, like when they put the baby in the washing machine and turn it on. This baby receives so much trauma in this movie over and over again that it would die in real life or have serious brain damage at the least.
Jackie and Louis have some funky style in this film and seem to like to wear bright colors, especially pink.

My Lucky Stars (1985)

If you like wacky Asian comedies, you'll love My Lucky Stars. If you want a Jackie Chan movie, you'll be hugely disappointed. Jackie is hardly in this film.

The few fight scenes in the film are decent but nothing really special. I think most Asians will really enjoy the humor in My Lucky Stars but most westerners will find it too silly.

Also, Bolo Yeung makes a cameo.