Populasian: July 2025

Friday, July 11, 2025

肥龍過江 - Enter the Fat Dragon

肥龍過江 (Enter the Fat Dragon) is an 2020 film out of Hong Kong. The movie stars Donnie Yen, the strongest in the universe. The supporting cast include Niki Chow, Wong Jing, Teresa Mo, Naoto Takenaka, Joey Iwanaga, and Jessica Jann. This movie hit the market right as the pandemic got into full swing in Asia for CNY.

Ah Long is a over zealous Hong Kong police officer that has gotten a reputation for being never giving up on a arrest. This has him in bad standing with his colleagues and causes him to miss his pre-wedding photos. His fiancée breaks up with him and Ah Long is demoted to the evidence cellar. Ah Long finally gets his break to get back into action, but has since gotten fat sitting around doing nothing. Enter the fat dragon. Ah long is to bring a suspect back to Japan and hand him over to the Japanese police. But when they get to Japan, the suspect gets away. Will Ah Long get the suspect back and his career back?

I watched this on Prime Video recently, but it took me over three weeks of a few minutes here and there to finish. The version on Prime Video was also in Cantonese. The reason I haven't watched this earlier is that I haven't been able to find a mandarin dubbed version. But I gave in and watched the Canto version. I do not like reading subs if I don't have to. Having to watch this with subs was one of the reasons I didn't enjoy it.

If you're ok with the canto, the movie was a comedy action film. Ah Long is in a obvious fat suit. But it worked out due to the comedic elements of the film set up from the very beginning. If you like action and a ridiculous story, this movie is for you.

Friday, July 4, 2025

F1

F1 is an 2025 film. The movie stars Brad Pitt and Damson Idris. The supporting cast include Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem, Kim Bodnia, Sarah Niles, Will Merrick, Joseph Balderrama, Abdul Salis, Callie Cooke, Samson Kayo, and Tobias Menzies. The movie was directed by Joseph Kosinski. The movie had a good opening weekend.

Sonny Hayes has just won the 24 hour Daytona race and is heading to another race. Ruben Cervantes has a F1 team and needs a driver, recruting Sonny as they drove against each other in the 1990s. Sonny has been out of F1 for 3 decades. The remaining driver Joshua Pearce (JP) is a up and coming driver. Sonny and JP butt heads right away. The team needs at least 1 win to continue as a F1 into the next year. If not, they will be sold and debanded with Ruben losing over 350 million dollars. Can Sonny help the team get 1 win and survive to the next season?

I was able to goto the movie via T-Mobile Tuesday deal of $5 a ticket. I eneded up getting a couple of more codes via eBay for $1.95 each. The total for 4 tickets was $23.84. Popcorn and a drink was $28.74. If we had gotton a regular IMAX ticket, it would have been $24.99 each. It harder to justify going to the theatre. This was the first movie as a family in a couple of years. Recently, I have only gone out to the theatre on the T-Mobile $5 tickets.

How was the movie? It was good. I was entertained the whole time. I am a passing F1 guy and do not generally keep track anymore. I was kinda into F1 during the Michael Schumacher's dominance during the 1990s. But lost interst as it was hard to get F1 news in the US back in the day. Recently, due to many clips online, I have gotten back in. The movie was not hard to understand due to my passing interest. My other family members whom did not know what F1 was, got the movie as well.

The story itself is pretty easy to follow. Win one race. However, the journey to get there via Brad Pitt was pretty fun. Pitt does a good job as the old man.