Champions - 奪標

Champions (奪標) is a 2008 movie out of Hong Kong. It stars Dicky Cheung and a gazillion others. I am surprised that the movie was released after the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but it also makes sense.

The movie is about a athletics department sending their athletes to a sports completion. The 1936 Olympics. So, the the story goes into song and dance about what seems like propaganda for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Power of Chinese Athletics is a running theme. The story also has the athletes having to make enough to pay their way. There's a lot of fighting. A lot of drama. A lot of bad guys.

I would rate this film in the super cheesy category for its propaganda type theme for athletics. Cheese for the romances and bromances. Cheese in the acting. Dicky Cheung is not looking like a early 20s guy anymore.

Its also got like 5 sub plots that extend the movie to 2 hours. Bring a notepad to keep track of all the characters and their relations to Dicky.

Not a great film. Not even a good film. But its worth a watch, but just once.

The Proud Twins - The Handsome Siblings - 小魚兒與花無缺

The Proud Twins - The Handsome Siblings - 小魚兒與花無缺 was a 2004 and 2005 wuxia series starring Nicholas Tse and Dickie Cheung, based off the Gu Long novel, The Legendary Twins (絕世雙嬌).

I originally wrote a brief review of this series in March 2007.

Here's my review from March 12, 2007:

One is called "The Proud Twins" starring two HK male leads, Dicky Cheung and Nicholas Tse. Its around 44 or 45 episodes (depends on which DVD set you're watching). I must say that the first 25 episode were fantastic. Simply amazing. I watched in anticipation for each story arc to unfold. But the series took a really dark tone after that point and I ended up fast forwarding through at least 80% of the rest of the series. I remember telling my wife that she had to watch it and I'd translate whatever she couldn't understand. But I couldn't recommend it after I watched it all. Only 60% of the series was any good. Do the producers and makers even know how good it was and how much it sucked after? In any case, it was GREAT for 25 episodes. I can tell you when to stop and not watch anymore. This story was based off a Gu Long novel.

That was both a glowing and loathsome review. It really was a amazing first half to the series. However, the second half turned really morbid and doesn't give you that nice fuzzy ending you would like.