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Fulltime Killer - Special Edition

Fulltime Killer - Special Edition

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Pretty good mix of old and new
Review: Hong Kong cinema was cool before the days of The Matrix. This movie has a lot of the old feel and some very cool scenes reminiscent of other great action flicks like Bullet in the Head and Brother. However, it feels as though the director was worried viewers wouldn't buy the movie unless it had some mindless and useless CGI effects. The insertion of these feels contrived and forced.

Aside from these few trivial flaws, this film boasts some awesome characters (Takashi Sorimachi is way cool) and the women are super hot. Man, how I wish all cops looked like the girl in this movie!! Hong Kongese English is a bear to understand, but dialog is secondary. The shoot-em-up scenes are some of the best.

I do agree with other reviewers that the ending seems disjointed. It gets a bit Ecks vs. Severlike at about the 75 minute mark.

Overall, a good rent. Check it out, and then make the call to plunk down your hard earned $13 bucks or so for a copy of your own.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Better than your typical Hong Kong shoot-em-up
Review: I saw this movie last night at the San Francisco International Film Festival. It stars Japanese heartthrob Takashi Sorimachi as O, the best assassin in Asia, and Hong Kong heartthrob Andy Lau as Tok, an up-and-coming assassin who wants to be known as the best and thus challenges O. I went into this movie not expecting much but was pleasantly surprised, especially by the last third of the movie as it showed unexpected depths and twists.

Not to say this movie is without flaws -- there's lots of typical extraneous violence, many hokey lines, and unbelievable scenes. However, the movie's switching between Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, and English (depending on the native language of the speaker) is a bit of a surprise and gives the movie a bit more of a cosmopolitan, realistic feel than most HK action flicks (don't worry, it's subtitled in Chinese and English). But the action is well-paced, with amusing references to the first-person shoot-em-up video games like "Doom" and "Halo" that it sometimes resembles, and interesting camera angles and editing. Sorimachi delivers a sexy performance as the efficient but terse O, and Lau walks a psychotic edge as the flamboyant Tok with a love for movies.

"Fulltime Killer" isn't for everyone, but if you enjoy Hong Kong action films or are a fan of one of the stars, or like action films with a bit of a twist and aren't expecting "War and Peace", then check this one out.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Kill me now
Review: If you understand any two of the spoken languages (mandarnin, cantonese, japanese, english) in the film, it would be better to watch this film as a silent movie. The barrage of east asian languages makes it very difficult to identify with the characters though its usage is supposed to flesh them out. Even throughout the most dramatic of scenes, you just don't care about what happens to them.

FK borrows plot elements from American movies that borrowed from HK movies to bring it back to the nostalgic HK film days. Action sequences are indeed refreshing in its non-Matrix ways, but the plot suffers horribly as it tries to tie action sequence to action sequence. At the end, you don't care about the action sequence because you're not sure how you got there in the first place.

The movies rounds down to the "escaping the police" scene and the debut of Cherrie Ying.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Style over substance
Review: Johnny To directs with Wai Ka-Fai in this dizzying stylish gun-fest. O (Takashi Sorimahci) is the No 1 hitman in Asia. Andy Lau is Tok, a flashy, leather-cladding killer with a wealth of movie knowledge (know Leon?) and more than some expertise with guns, who tries to upstage the former from his pole position as Asia's No 1. The plot has to be taken with a pinch of salt (who'd would go out with a stranger in a Bill Clinton mask? And a cop who quits to write a hitmen story?), but the gun-touts are outstandingly bold (reminiscent of The Killer) and ultra-cool. This must be Lau's most hateful role to date, as a smirky, self-admiring, mayhem-bent killer. The backdrop itself is highly cosmopolitan: there're conversations in Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin and English, and not everyone fares well in another tongue (Lau's and Lin's Japanese sounds especially grating). In the end, this can't be seen as more than a genre exercise by scriptwriter Wai Ka-Fai, and though this may not be the best of Johnnie To as well, its devil-may-care glitziness and refusal to be pigeonholed as standard fare may make you think twice about it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Nothing wrong with linguistic barriers
Review: Many reviewers have complained about the variety of asian languages presented in this film. I say, "get over it." Don't be so ethnocentric as to think that every movie should be made in the language that you personally speak. If you only watch a movie, or judge one, by the language it is filmed in than you will definitely limit your choices of movies.

Secondly, this movie has its flaws, but it is a great representative of the whole Hong Kong guns a blazing genre. Great story telling, entertainment, and conveyance of what honor can really mean.If you are a fan of John Woo's Hard Boiled for example, you should definitely give this movie a shot.

Thirdly, I gave this movie a 5 star rating. I would have probably given it a 4 star rating but I saw some 2 star ratings by other reviewers and wanted to balance things out to where it should really be.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Name of the Song
Review: The song in the movie is by Marni And The Men, written by Marni Bacharier...you can find more about them at http://www.tutton.org/marni.html

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Wasted talent
Review: This is a mess of a film about a pair of killers, the girl between them, and the cops pursuing them. Ultimately, this is just a muddled mess of a film. Johnnie To directed this, which makes it even more disappointing, as he is the fella who brought us such classics as The Mission, The Heroic Trio, and The Big Heat. This movie has a decent plot, a fine cast (Simon Yam and Andy Lau, both used very badly), and a few moments that indictae what could have been. However, there are inexplicable plot shifts and dialogue exchanges in the film, some of them quite laughable. And the narrative shift from Simon Yam being a hardboiled cop to a writer's block-stricken, obsessed chronicler of the mundane rivalry between the two dull killers is at best puzzling and at worst defies all possible explanation. This is not a film indicative of the collective talents assembled here.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ONE OF THE BEST MOVIES I HAVE EVER SEEN!
Review: This movie is so great! This is on my top 5 movies of all time! This movie is definitely worth buying!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: First time watching a movie with sub titles.
Review: This movie was awsome. As others have written, it is about two men who are paid assasins. One is considered the best, and the other aspires to be the best. There is also a very beautiful asian woman, I wish I knew her name, who is the love intereterest of both assasins. Who will win?

This movie is a blast to watch. The cinematography was great. I give it 5 stars because I have never seen a movie like this.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My first asian flick...
Review: This was a great movie. It took a little "getting used to" with the subtitles, but after a while the movie just took off. While I am certain that words are important, what these characters tell you in body language and action is just as impressive. And the scenery is to die for. I am so happy I purchased this DVD. The picture is crystal clear, the images are great and filled with clear color, no over saturation. The sound is also great. You get some previews and trailers with the DVD and some special features. A great DVD to add to my collection.


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