奪冠 - Leap

Leap (奪冠) is an 2020 film out of Zhong Guo. The movie stars Gong Li and Huang Bo. The supporting cast include Peng YuChang, Lydia Bai, Wu Gang, and actual members of the Zhong Guo national team from 2016. The movie is a 40 year look into how the Zhong Guo women's vollyball team rose from bottom of the barrel to gold.

In the 1980s, the women's team is at the bottom of the barrel. The coach is hard nosed and trains the women with little regard for their feelings. The coach wants the women to win at all cost and drives them hard. The coach hires an assistant that eventually forms a tight bound with arguably the best player on the team Lang Ping. Lang Ping and the assistant, Chen ZhongHe, begin to train and become better. The 1980s team starts to enjoy some success. Fast forward to the end of the 20th century, Lang Pang has emmigrated to the USA and Chen ZhongHe has become the coach of the national team. Towards end of the aughts, the Zhong Guo team is no longer at the top, while Lang Ping has become head coach of the USA team leading them to some success. Chen ZhongHe than approaches Lang Ping to come back the Zhong Guo side and coach. Through much thought, Lang Ping decides to become the head coach. We see Lang Ping whip the gals into shape to capture gold in 2016.

I caught this movie via Amazon Prime a few months ago. I do not believe its free on Prime anymore. I caught this when things were more locked down in 2021. I was not sure what I was watching other than it was about volleyball. I have always cheered on the Zhong Guo teams during the Olympics to do well, but never really knew who was who. This movie brought into light some things I never paid attention to. I was glad to have watched this movie. Does it have flaws? Which movie doesn't? Was I entertained while watching, fo shizzle.

Lydia Bai played the younger Lang Ping for the 1980s scenes. Lydia did an amazing job. I wouldn't even have known she was an ABC from watching the movie. The 1980s garb transformed her. Lydia is actually the real life daughter of Lang Ping! Pretty amazing. Lydia also played on the Stanford women's volleyball team during the early Tens. I am glad she was able to play this role given her connection. I hope she appears in more stuff.

痞子英雄:黎明再起 - Black and White: The Dawn of Justice - Upcoming

Black And White: The Dawn of Justice (痞子英雄:黎明升起) was released in Taipei this past weekend. The movie is a sequel to to Black And White Episode 1: The Dawn of Assault (痞子英雄首部曲:全面開戰). Both which are prequels to the Taiwanese drama series from 2009.

The movie still follows Mark Chao with a new side kick. They much save the day, the fate of the city is in their hands.

During September, the crew of the movie went on a promotional tour. They seemed to be everywhere. I am not sure if this movie will make it to Zhong Guo, but the last two movies feature Zhong Guo stars in the side kick role.

Black And White: The Dawn of Justice - 痞子英雄:黎明升起 - Trailer Released

Black And White: The Dawn of Justice (痞子英雄:黎明升起) is an upcoming film being released in Asia in early October. The trailer was released a couple of weeks back. he movie stars Mark Chao, Lin Gengxin, and Huang Bo.

Looks intense. Can't wait to watch it.

Journey To The West: Conquering The Demons - 西遊:降魔篇

Journey To The West: Conquering The Demons (西遊:降魔篇) is an 2013 film out of Zhong Guo. The film stars Wen Zhang and Shu Qi. The supporting cast include Huang Bo, Show Lo, and Chrissie Chau. The movie is the highest grossing film out of Zhong Guo. It also was the highest grossing film for several months in early 2013.



Chen is a demon hunter that travels where evil energy is strong. Chen lands in a fishing village and takes on a fish demon. When he tries to turn the demon via love, another demon hunter comes and captures the demon through brute force. Chen goes back to his master for advice. The master tells him that his path is right and not to waver. Chen than finds the den of a pig demon. When the brute force demon hunter that captured the fish comes to his rescue, they are both defeated. When Chen ask his master for advice, the master points him to the Monkey King Demon. On the way there, Chen is faces with some obstacles. The other demon hunter is Duan and falls in love with Chen. Duan risk her life to save Chen over and over.



This movie was very well made. If you watched enough cartoons, movies, and dramas from Zhong Guo, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, the story of the Journey To The West and the Monkey King will show itself. It is like the Brothers Grimm tales of the "western" countries, but the Asian countries have Journey To The West among other stories.



This movie was Wu Li Tou to the max. You would expect that from the forefathers in Stephen Chow. From nose bleeds, to getting K'd, it was a flashback to the HK movies hi jinx of the 1980s and 1990s that made me love HK cinema so much.

Shu Qi is showing her age whilst trying to play a youngster, but she did pull it off. This is Shu Qi that got all of Asia forgetting her teen coming out party. Shu Qi keeps on keeping on and we all love her for that.

痞子英雄:首部曲:全面開戰 - Black And White Episode 1: The Dawn of Assault - Upcoming 3

OMG! 痞子英雄:首部曲:全面開戰 (Black And White Episode 1: The Dawn of Assault) is now in the theaters of Taipei! Dood, I have a bad feeling that this movie won't be available on Blu-ray until the end of 2012.

If you're Taiwan this month, watch it! I think the cast is far different than the TV series that it won't even matter if you saw it. It'll be enough of a standalone to bring the rest of the world along for the ride.

I still have my doubts about Angelababy and Huang Bo. Very sad that Janine Chang, Ivy Chen, and Vic are not part of the movie.

Alright Taiwan, let's make 2012 a bang up year for Taiwanese movies.

痞子英雄:首部曲:全面開戰 - Black And White Episode 1: The Dawn of Assault - Upcoming 2

The gang over at Black And White are wishing you a Merry Christmas! Seems that I can't get away from the media coverage of this movie recently within the Taiwan entertainment realm. It's not like tebow coverage, but it seems to pop up all over the place.



Unfortunately, the coverage hasn't all been positive. Ivy Chen, the main female lead in the television series was cut out of the movie due to "length" issues. Haha. Yeah right. Everyone's saying that nothing was behind it. If you look into it, there's some politics that were unfortunately involved.

And Angelababy is reportedly behaving badly by refusing to help promote the film. DRAMA!!



But I can't wait for this movie to come out! Man, I can't wait for it. Just screen it here in LA already!

痞子英雄:首部曲:全面開戰 - Black And White Episode 1: The Dawn of Assault - Upcoming

痞子英雄:首部曲:全面開戰 - Black And White Episode 1: The Dawn of Assault is set for release in January of 2012. The film is set to star the majority of the cast from the television series from 2009. Vic Chou will not be reprising his role as "black" portion. However, it looks like they've gone out and got Huang Bo to be the "痞子" or rascal part of the equation. Mark Chao, Ivy Chen and Janine Chang round out the returning cast. Angelababy and Alex To were added to the cast as well. Add to that an contingency of Taiwanese movie mainstays like Terri Kwan, Dean Fujioka Tatsuo, 阿Ken, Leon Dai, and Jack Kao, this movie looks awesome.



The trailers are starting and the stars are hitting the circuits in Taiwan to promote the film. I would imagine that with an earlier Chinese New Years, the movie will play to that. I have to decide if I can wait for the Blu-ray version to be released in Taiwan or get a crappy version around LA in February. Decisions, decisions.

Fit Lover - 愛情左右 - 愛情呼叫轉移2

Fit Lover (愛情左右/愛情呼叫轉移2) is a 2008 film out of China. The film stars Karena Lam. A host of others make cameos throughout the film. Including Huang Bo, Nie Yuan, Alec Su, Huang Xiaoming, Deng Chao, Tong Dawei, Huang Lei, Fan Wei, Leo Koo, Lu Yi, and Lin Shen. Jessey Meng plays a best friend and sounding board. This film is related to Call For Love.

Karena Lam plays Bing, a talk show that gives really really good love advice. But Bing hasn't been successful in her love life. One foggy afternoon, sorry...one afternoon, Bing receives a car from an angel. This angel tells her that she will meet 12 men via this vehicle and one of them will be her mate. But you must do it within 12 months or you'll never get hitched.

There you go, that is the movie. Bing goes on to meet 12 men. All 12 are very different and have qualities you either love or hate.

I wasn't into this movie as much as I was into Call for Love, its predecessor. But Karena put on a good show and even tried to change up her mando dialect to resemble Beijingers.

Cow - 鬥牛

Cow (鬥牛) is a 2009 film out of China. The film stars Huang Bo and a cow. Yan Ni does show up from time to time.

The film is about Niu-er (牛兒). He's the lone human survivor of his village. Niu-er's cow Jiu-er is also a survivor and a couple of crickets. As Niu-er explores the village, we are exposed to how we got to the situation in a series of flashback. The the current storyline goes on.



I don't know how else to explain the film. The movie was a trip and the dialect of these village folks was crazy (hard to understand). I would classify this as an episodic type of film. Each flashback is an episode into the past. Each current event is an episode broken up by the flashback.

I can see why Huang Bo won a Golden Horse, that guy put on a masterful performance.