Beijing Love Story - 北京愛情故事

Beijing Love Story (北京愛情故事) is an 2014 film out of Zhong Guo. The movie is an ensemble cast including Tony Leung, Carina Lau, Wang Xuebing, Yu Nan, Chen Sicheng, and Tong Liya. The movie is broken up into 5 different stories.

In Beijing, the party is going strong while some men pick up on some gals. A man falls for a gal and they hook up. Gal is preggers. In another story, married couple that has problems when the man goes out at night and sleeps around. Wife cracks cell phone to find his dirty deeds. Another story is of high school crush. Another story is of an aging couple madly in love dealing with death. Another couple with a kid try to rekindle their marriage with some roll playing.

All five story present a "LOVE" story of sorts. It seemed a big hit in Zhong Guo and Hong Kong as it cracked the top ten. Even in the US, the movie played for 6 weeks.

However, the movie was a major disappointment for me as the stories were trying present "love". It could be a culture thing as I noticed this in many drama series from Zhong Guo recently, the "love" they present seems more like a contract. Maybe its because I grew up in the states and that the "love" stories of wuxia lore are more inline with my Americanize Taiwanese upbringing. In the US, in the mainstream culture, only the old couple and high school couple would fall into the "love" category. But America's definition of love isn't keeping people married nor getting people to marry too. Marriage are down and divorces are up.

If you are a FOB, watch it. You might enjoy it. If you grew up in the US, I'd recommend you to pass.

Beijing Love Story - 北京愛情故事 - Upcoming

Beijing Love Story (北京愛情故事) is being release in the US market this weekend. Seems to be anthology of lives that find their love in different ways. I wouldn't mind checking it out. I like these types of movies because the bang for your buck is high with so many characters. Most likely, these characters in and in themselves would not be able to carry a whole movie, but in shorten form, we take it the extremes of the story and don't have to invest so much time.

I will try my darndest to catch it in the local movie theatre. But current showtimes are not favorable to my schedule.

The Expendables 2 - 浴血任務2

The Expendables 2 (浴血任務2) is an 2012 film. The movie stars Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham. The rest of the ensemble cast include Jet Li, Yu Nan, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Liam Hemsworth, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Wow, what a cast. Did will enough at the global box office that a second sequel is in the works.



The movie is much like the first one. Sly plays the leader and has to recover something from a far away land that has no stable government. Lead by JCVD, this rouge terrorist group is looking to do something bad with a black market weapon. Enter Bruce Willis asking Sly for a favor. Off they go to this country to get this thing. Insert all the craziness of all these cast members.



This movie was entertaining. Fun to see all these old skool action heroes try to make it look good. Some did, some didn't. Arnold is passed his prime. I just watched the Running Man the other day. Classic 1980s movie. Not classic in his cameo in Expendables installment.



Jet Li only see action in the first 5-10 minutes of the film. After that, he's not even on the team. They left the Asian representation to Yu Nan, the government liaison. For some reason, they were trying to play Yu and Sly in some "love" relationship. Didn't work and it was just awkward. Please don't do that again.



If you liked the first one and are as old or older than me, you may enjoy this. Lots of fighting, shooting, and explosions.

基因決定我愛你 - My DNA Says I Love You

I saw 基因決定我愛你 - My DNA Says I Love You a few months ago. I was a fan of Robin Lee's The Shoe Fairy and was anticipating this film.

DNA was quite weird, but was ultimately enjoyable. I think that the casting of Yu Nan was out of place as the other 3 stars were from Taiwan. You can tell the dialect difference right away (at least I could) along with the rest of the bit players.

The setting however was in China somewhere and not in Taiwan (at least from what I can tell).

The story follows 2 ladies and 2 gentlemen that look for love in different ways. The 2 ladies are co-workers and roommates. They work for a company that provides pills that modify behavior. A novel concept. Hijinx ensues and love is lost & found for both our female protagonist. The male counterparts almost seem like eye candy as the story is really centered around the 2 female leads.

It's an "art" film and really makes you work to understand it all. But its worth the mind trip and I have a lot of anticipation for future Robin Lee films.