Robin Hood (2010)

Set in 12th Century England, “Robin Hood” chronicles the adventures of Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe), a common archer in the army of King Richard the Lionheart (Danny Huston) during his 10-year Crusade to the Holy Land. His Crusade effectively over and his army badly demoralized, Richard is headed back home, sacking every French castle they cross to fund their retreat. After Lionheart is killed in battle, Robin and his merry men decide that 10 years is more than enough service to the Crown, and ditches the army for home. On their way back to Jolly ol England, they run across a French ambush led by the duplicitous Englishman Godfrey (Mark Strong), and the badly injured Sir Robert Loxley. In a moment of weakness, Robin agrees to take the dying Knight’s sword home to his father.

Back in England, squirrely Prince John (Oscar Isaac), the next in line to the throne, greets news of his brother Richard’s death with less than Princely jubilation. Immediately, John assigns Godfrey, unaware of the man’s treachery, to begin collecting owed taxes by any means necessary. Godfrey does this by bringing over French raiders to sack English towns, quickly turning the country’s Lords against their new King. Meanwhile, Robin arrives in Nottingham, where he delivers the sad news to Sir Walter Loxley (Max von Sydow) and Robert’s beautiful and suffering wife, Marion (Cate Blanchett), who only knew her husband for one week before he went off to the Crusade. Here, the kindly Lord makes Robin a deal he can’t refuse: pretend to be the dead Robert, so that Marion will retain their possessions once Walter passes. Thanks to a combination of chivalry, Marion’s soulful glances, and the ability to open the door when opportunity presents itself, Robin agrees.

Ridley Scott (director) / Brian Helgeland, Ethan Reiff, Cyrus Voris (screenplay) CAST: Russell Crowe … Robin Longstride Cate Blanchett … Marion Loxley Max von Sydow … Sir Walter Loxley William Hurt … William Marshal Mark Strong … Godfrey Oscar Isaac … Prince John Danny Huston … King Richard The Lionheart Mark Addy … Friar Tuck Matthew Macfadyen … Sheriff of Nottingham Kevin Durand … Little John Scott Grimes … Will Scarlet

Bad Blood (2010)

The film kicks off in fine, action packed style with Tung Luen Shun gang boss Lok Cheung On (Eddie Cheung) being caught during a botched counterfeit money job in Mainland China, and then summarily executed. This leaves a power vacuum for the gang back in Hong Kong, with the oddly named but ambitious Funky (Simon Yam) being first in line to step up and lead the family. However, many others are also vying for position, including Lok’s naïve son (Chris Lai), recently returned from the US, his seemingly quiet and obedient daughter Audrey (Bernice Liu), and Calf, a young man with a disfiguring birthmark on his face and a massive chip on his shoulder – not to mention Lok’s many wives, mistresses and other triad henchmen. It soon becomes clear that one of them is only too willing to kill for the job, as cast members start dropping like flies, forcing the others to try and figure out who the murder is before they find their own throats cut.

There’s no denying that, by traditional cinematic standards, “Bad Blood” is a bit of a mess. Law has never been much of a storyteller, showing a strange predilection for alternately ignoring his characters and then spending far too much time focusing on their more mundane activities. Despite its basic high concept premise of being a triad murders whodunit, the plot has a real tendency to go off on odd and pointless tangents, though thankfully less so than in other recent Law efforts such as “Womb Ghosts”. The good news is that all of this actually works well to make “Bad Blood” extremely entertaining, if perhaps not for the intended reasons. With all of the cast playing strange, larger than life and not quite believable cartoon figures, their infighting and scheming makes for some wonderfully hysterical melodrama, most of which is all the funnier for being played straight. Once the identity of the assassin is revealed, wisely quite early on in the proceedings, things get even better, with some top notch ruthlessness and wacky murders. Here, Law shows his usual taste for randomness, with characters being abruptly dispatched with no thought to generating tension, something which also makes for some unexpected, laugh out loud moments.
Dennis Law (director) / Dennis Law (screenplay)
CAST: Wai-Man Chan … Zen
Pinky Cheung … Lucy / The Seventh Wife
Siu-Fai Cheung … Andy
Luxia Jiang … Dumby
Suet Lam … Peter Wong
Bernice Liu … Audrey
Ken Lo … Hung
Andy On … Calf
Xin Xin Xiong … Kong
Simon Yam … Funky

Ip Man 2

2008’s “Ip Man” is one of the best martial arts movies you’ll see in the last 10 years, a film that all but cemented Donnie Yen’s crown as the new kung fu king of Hong Kong cinema. 2010’s “Ip Man 2” is a get rich quick scheme, and that’s me being very generous. The film’s one big success story is that it actually allows star Donnie Yen to expand on his acting chops. Somewhat. I’m not saying Yen has become Tony Leung or Chow Yun Fat overnight, but he seems to have understood that his character has aged since the first movie, and it shows here. Then again, who the hell watches a Donnie Yen movie for acting? Don’t get me wrong, there are a couple of entertaining bits here and there, but overall, the sequel is 110 minutes of rehashed plotlines and wasted opportunity. When Donnie Yen fighting 20 guys in a fish market makes you yawn, something is very wrong.

After the events of the first movie, Ip Man (Donnie Yen) travels to Hong Kong with his family, including young son and pregnant wife (Lynn Hung). Ip, as I like to call him, is intent on opening his school and propagating Wing Chun to the Hong Kong masses. Alas, he faces difficulties, and never you mind that this is the same guy who famously and nearly single-handedly defeated the Japanese Army (if the first movie is to be believed), but no one in Hong Kong even knows who he is. Wha…? You would think his exploits would get around, but apparently not so much. In any case, our hero is stuck in neutral (or as the kids call it, he’s dirt poor), with his pregnant wife henpecking him to, you know, become successful or something. He’s opened a rooftop school, but has no students. It’s so bad, the lady downstairs uses his school to hang her laundry.

source by beyondhollywood

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Nancy, Kris, Quentin, Jesse and Dean all live on Elm Street. At night, they’re all having the same dream—of the same man, wearing a tattered red and green striped sweater, a beaten fedora half-concealing a disfigured face and a gardener’s glove with knives for fingers. And they’re all hearing the same frightening voice. One by one, he terrorizes them within the curved walls of their dreams, where the rules are his, and the only way out is to wake up. But when one of their own dies a violent death, they soon realize that what happens in their dreams happens for real, and the only way to stay alive is to stay awake. Turning to each other, the four surviving friends try to uncover how they became part of this dark fairytale, hunted by this dark man. Functioning on little to no sleep, they struggle to understand why them, why now, and what their parents aren’t telling them. Buried in their past is a debt that has just come due, and to save themselves, they will have to plunge themselves into the mind of the most twisted nightmare of all, Freddy Krueger.

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Kick-Ass

Adapted from Mark Millar's hyper-violent comic book of the same name, director Matthew Vaughn's (Layer Cake) vigilante superhero film tells the tale of an average New York teenager who decides to don a costume and fight crime. Comic book geek Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) may not have good coordination or special powers, but that doesn't mean he isn't a fully capable crime fighter. After purchasing a flashy wet suit on the Internet, Dave starts busting up baddies with nothing but brute force. He calls himself Kick-Ass, and he can take a beating as good as he can dish one out. Before long, Kick-Ass has become a local sensation, and others are following his lead. Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz) are a father-daughter crime-fighting duo who have set their sights on local mob heavy Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong). They're doing a decent job of dismantling Frank's sizable underworld empire when Kick-Ass gets drawn into the fray. But Frank's men play rough, and his son, Chris (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), is about to become Kick-Ass' very first arch nemesis. When Chris assumes the persona of Red Mist, the stage is set for a superhero showdown that could spell the end of Kick-Ass once and for all. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

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Iron Man 2

Six months after the end of the first movie, Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) has used his Iron Man armor to bring about a negotiated peace treaty between the major super powers of the world, and his immense popularity with the general public is only furthered when he fulfills his father's dream by opening the "Stark Expo", to showcase all the latest inventions that will benefit the world. Stark is, however, still vilified by the United States government, and Senator Stern (Gary Shandling) in particular, who demands that he hand his armor technology over for military application. Stark refuses, publicly shaming rival Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) in the process by highlighting his own failed attempts at recreating the technology. All is not well in Stark's life, however: he has discovered that the palladium in the arc reactor keeping his heart beating has begun to poison his body, slowly killing him, and all attempts to find a substitute element have failed. Slowly going off the rails as a consequence of what he believes to be his impending death, he appoints his former personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) CEO of Stark Industries, replacing her with Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson).

While racing in Monaco, Stark is attacked by Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), who has constructed a miniaturized arc reactor of his own, including whip-like attachments harnessing the electrical energy. Defeating Vanko with the aid of his Mark V armor (a transforming briefcase), Stark discovers that Vanko is the son of disgraced Russian physicist Anton Vanko, who collaborated on the first arc reactor with Stark's father Howard (John Slattery). Vanko is promptly broken out of jail by a revenge-seeking Justin Hammer, who puts him to work fashioning a line of "Iron Drones" that he will use to upstage Stark at his own Expo.

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