甜蜜殺機 (Sweet Alibis) was released in Taipei this weekend. The movie stars Alec Su and Ariel Lin. From the looks of the trailer, this is a Taiwan version of Jimmy Fallon's "Taxi" movie. A buddy cop movie that wants to put the comedy stamp on it. Bathroom humor to start the trailer says it all.
Looks satirical enough for me to want to check it out tho.
戀愛恐慌症 (Lovesick) is being released in Taipei this weekend. The movie stars Ariel Lin and Wilson Chen. Lin plays a gal who's been hurt from a previous relationship to meeting Chen, a doctor she magically meets at an hospital. Insert other fun hijinx to connect these two and you've got a Taiwanese rom-com. Nice. Or not. Production value looks good and it also has an who's who of other Taiwanese celebs.
But the characters and elements of this story from 金庸 was quite amazing. Even with the deviations, the story turned out ok.
Ariel Lin was a great 黃蓉. I thought was both cute and devious at the same time. 楊康 was actually correctly cast as opposed to the 1994 and 2003 ones. I really bought into it that he was evil but had that tint of wanting to reform.
This drama really played up the "soap opera" parts. 歐陽克 and 歐陽鋒's father/son relationship was played up the maximum and helped drive some of the emotional aspects of the serious. I was actually sad for 歐陽克 and was pulling for him at the end.
In all, this was a memorable drama that I'll watch again in the future.
I've seen all 3 of the major adaptions since Felix Wong and Barbara Yung's 59 episode epic in 1983/1984. I remember just trying to rent the drama back in the 80s was a major pain. Since there were few video rental stores, it took months to get our hands on it. And because of the demand, we had to return it by a certain date or risk surcharges. Outrageous! Its not like that today. Once the series is over, within a couple of weeks, its on DVD and you can purchase it.
I wasn't all that fond of the 1994 remake featuring Julian Cheung and Athena Chu. Even though Athena is one of my favorite actresses, I didn't think she fit the part.
I did however like the 2003 one featuring Li Ya Peng and Zhou Xun. Maybe because I didn't really have expectations and the series was on VCD, it sorta blew me away. It was annoying to have to change a disc every episode, but I got over it as the series went on. The ending was a little weak beacuse everything seem to end so abruptly.
I was actually quite surprised that they were making the current verson due for release in 2007, but postphoned to 2008 due to an injury to the main make protagonist, Hu Ge.
It would have been less than 5 years if released in 2007. Being released in 2008 roughly gives it 5 years. I don't now, I forget the Jin Yong stories within a few years. Might take me 2 or 3 years to completely forget parts of the stories. That's why I put them on in the background to refresh myself. I did that a couple of years ago for the 2003 series. But once I found out of the 2007 series, I stopped. Just so I would be murky and not completely know the story as I watch it again.
Anyway, search for it on youtube and you'll see many many clips, trailers, MVs, etc about it. I can't wait for it to come out. From what I've seen so far, it's going to have the best production value of any of the Jin Yong series I've seen. I hope it lives up to the hype and people's expectations.
