My Kingdom - 大武生

My Kingdom (大武生) is an 2011 film out of Zhong Guo. The movie stars Wu Chun, Barbie Hsu, and Han Geng. I actually saw this movie in my hotel room while on a business trip in Zhong Guo.

In the world of Chinese Opera, when a master is challenged and loses, he must exit his studio and remove himself from that world. When Wu Chun and Han Geng's master loses, they are forced to retreat into seclusion and gain their skills to mount a challenge when they are older. The practice for many years until their adulthood. They head back to what appears to by Shanghai and take over the studio their master lost to by beating the reigning master. Once they are the head of the Opera, they become famous and rich in the city. However, they both have a bit of bad boy in them. Will their new found fame and glory go to their heads?

This movie was quite boring. I was waiting for it to get more interesting. However, it wouldn't. It refused. It must have said to itself, "Hey, no one else here, let's make the story confusing, lead characters unlikable, and throw in a love triangle. Seriously, they should have stuck to a simpler story.



My Kingdom

Futute X-Cops -- 未來警察

Futute X-Cops (未來警察) is a 2010 film out of Hong Kong staring Andy Lau, Barbie Hsu (大S), Fan Bing Bing, and Mike He.

In the future, 2080, Andy Lau is the chief of a team of cops set to protect a scientist. Fan Bing Bing and Andy are a couple but in the process of protecting the scientist, the wife is killed. But the bad guys find a way to go back in time. But in order to do that, you have to be a cyborg with limited human organs. Andy is transformed into a super cyborg and sent into the past to protect the young scientist.



The movie was pretty weird. It felt slapped together. There seemed to be gaps that just assumed you knew what happened. The acting from Andy felt early 90s when all he did was smile a whole lot and looked surprised. 大S and Andy's romance seemed way icky.

I had high hopes due to its sci-fi nature, but was ultimately let down.

泡沫之夏 - Summer's Desire - Upcoming

泡沫之夏 (Summer's Desire) is set for broadcast in the next few months, but I noticed the extended trailer for it from GTV today. I've posted it below.

Pretty long teaser, but nothing out of the norm. But no release date mentioned.

It is an Taiwanese drama with a male lead from China. One of few if not the first (minus HK). But its already strange as his Mandarin is distinctly China style and very far from Taiwan Mandarin.

Looking forward to Serena Fang, Coco Chiang, and Maggie Wu's participation in this series.

The Chinese title translates roughly to "bubbles of summer". Summer is in the English, but Desire is not part of the Chinese. But whatever, the Chinese titles are never as provocative as their English translations. But the title is a play on the Barbie's characters name of 夏沫 and 泡 meaning abandon. This series had "Summer's Bubble" attached to it for some time.

On His Majesty's Secret Service - 大內密探靈靈狗

On His Majesty's Secret Service (大內密探靈靈狗) is a 2009 film out of China. The movie stars Louis Koo with Barbie Hsu and Liu Yang.

The movie is a comedy about a group of 12 zodics that protect the emperor. Amoung them is Louis Koo as Dog. Dog doesn't know much kung fu, but makes up for it by being a master inventor. Dog is engaged to Faithful, played by Barbie Hsu. But their engagement is loose as it seems to be broken a couple times during the movie. Enter a master plan to assassinate the emperor, things start to get tricky.

The movie's humor didn't seem all HK, especially with most of the cast being from China. The dialects and uneven storytelling were quite distracting. And Barbie Hsu being next to Liu Yang wasn't good for 大S. Liu Yang is working herself into a cinema beauty. Skip it if you're looking to laugh a lot, but watch it for Liu Yang.

轉角*遇到愛 - Corner * With Love

轉角*遇到愛 (Corner * With Love) is a 2007 drama out of Taiwan. The two main stars are Show Luo and Barbie Hsu. There's a large supporting cast, but they too many to list.

Lang, played by Show, is a oyster egg cake cooker at a restaurant in Shanghai serving Taiwanese style dishes. Lang is there because he got tricked into coming here. An agent told him that someone wanted to but his comic strip. Xin Lei is a piano playing daughter of a rich Taiwanese family in Shanghai . Xin Lei has the world at her heels along with a "perfect" fiance.

How in the world can these two meet and eventually fall for each other? Its a little thing I like to call drama magic. Because in real life, it could and would never happen. Xin Lei's family business goes under and she's literally kicked out into the streets to fend for herself. In a strange turn of events, both lead protagonist head to Taiwan for the remainder of the series.

The version I watched was a China version and the episodes were like 22 minutes long. It was quite annoying to skip the opening and ending titles so often. Had I know this before hand, I would have rented the Taiwan version with only 19 episodes. The China one broke it up into 40 episodes.

The like the series for the most part and would recommend it. There was rumors of a sequel, but Barbie's been busy with a movie career of late.

Catch for a good glimpse of Shanghai and for two of more appealing leads in Show Luo and Barbie Hsu.