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Young Master, a review by Jon

Young Master (Shi di chu ma)
2 out of 5



When two rival martial arts schools square off in an annual lion dance competition, the favourite, betrayed by their star pupil, Tiger (Wei Pei), exits in disgrace. When Tiger is expelled and joins with a notorious gang of criminals, led by feared kicking expert Master Kim (Wong In-sik), Dragon (Jackie Chan) embarks on a dangerous mission to bring his 'brother' back to the school. Unfortunately, the situation is further complicated when he is mistaken for his criminal brother, and must fight to clear his name, while continually on the run from both the local police and the criminal gang. Unknown to Dragon, the ultimate challenge awaits him: a deadly one-on-one encounter with the formidable Master Kim. Filled with intricate, masterfully choreographed action sequences, clever sight-gags and fluid camerawork, this timeless classic broke all Hong Kong box-office records on its original theatrical release, and is still, today, one of the top-grossing Jackie Chan movies of all time!

I've always enjoyed classic martial arts movies, especially those with the two masters, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. The plots of their films are usually similar, especially the earliest ones, but their styles very different. Chan is an acrobatic circus performer, so his films usually have a huge dose of slapstick comedy (he is definitely China's Chaplin) including the fights. You should watch his movies for fun and astonishing stunts.

Young Master, incorrectly thought of as Chan's debut as a director, is not a good place to start. It's worth seeing, but it is tedious. The comedy is just too silly, the dialogue horrendous (although that could be down to poor subtitling) and the fights just go on too long. And in these early films the emphasis was on a very structured style often using props that might be clever, but becomes annoying. Chan is amazing with a fan, long-time collaborator Yuen Baio equally so with a bench, but every one of them needs a kick up the arse, so to speak!

What especially annoyed me was the sequence in the middle where Master Kim (Wong In-Sik) is freed from custody. It is superb! Exciting and brutal. It's all Chan's work though and he does a couple of the harder stunts, so he proves he could have injected the rest of the film with a bit more vigour. The final one-on-one with In-Sik could have been a really good brawler. It was known for being one of the longest fight sequences filmed so far at about 15 minutes. That's 10 too long, sadly.

Ah, well. I'll have to have a marathon of proper Chan movies, like Project A or Dragon's Forever.

(From DCO third annual November Alphabet Marathon - discussion/review/banter thread on November 23rd, 2009)

The School of Rock, a review by Tom

Title: The School of Rock
Year: 2003
Director: Richard Linklater
Rating: PG
Length: 109 Min.
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85
Audio: English: Dolby Digital 5.1 , English: Dolby Digital Surround , French: Dolby Digital 5.1 , Commentary: Dolby Digital Surround , Commentary: Dolby Digital Surround
Subtitles: English

Stars:
Jack Black
Adam Pascal
Lucas Papaelias
Chris Stack
Sarah Silverman

Plot:
Fired from his band, rock guitarist and vocalist Dewey Finn takes a job as a 4th grade substitute teacher at an uptight private school where his free livin' lifestyle, attitude, music and antics soon influences the students to explore other sides of themselves the school doesn't encourage. Finn's real goal in taking the job is to recruit a 9-year-old guitar prodigy, Yuki, to become the lead guitarist in a band that would be able to win a "battle of bands", solving Finn's money problems and re-establishing him as a respected rocker.

Extras:
Closed Captioned
Commentary
DVD-ROM Content
Featurettes
Music Videos
Production Notes
Scene Access
Trailers

After watching the Tenacious D movie recently, I felt like watching Jack Black in another movie where he plays the role he does best: the one of a wanne-be rock star.

I enjoyed this movie more than the last time around. Jack Black is in obviously in his element here.

Rating:

(From Tom's Random Reviews on November 17th, 2008)

Tom's TV Pilots marathon, a review by Tom

M.A.S.K.: Ultimate Collection (1985/United States) IMDb | Wikipedia (Australia) Length: 1875 min. Video: Full Frame 1.33:1 Audio: Subtitles:

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Plot:
Led by Matt Trakker, the Mobile Armoured Strike Kommand is a secret organisation that fights crime in an unusual way. By donning specially charged masks they have extraordinary powers to fight the villains of V.E.N.O.M., who pose a real threat to the free world with their own special equipment.

In addition to the masks, our heroes, and their counterparts, have super vehicles capable of a wide range of defensive and offensive actions, from changing a car into a jet or becoming a submarine.

Trakker meets each unusual situation by requesting his computer to pick the agents best suited for the job. As each agent has special talents some are better for a particular mission than others.

V.E.N.O.M., led by Miles Mayhem, always has their hands full when their evil plans for control are met by the crusading forces of M.A.S.K.


M.A.S.K.
1.01 The Deathstone
Writer: Jina Bacaar (Writer), Rod Baker (Writer), Creighton Barnes (Writer), Patrick Barry (Writer), Jack Bornoff (Writer), Del Bruckman (Writer), Barbara Chain (Writer), Kerry Ehrin (Writer), Herb Engelhardt (Writer), Mel Gilden (Writer), Ralph Goodman (Writer), David Gottlieb (Writer), Barbara Hambly (Writer), Trevor Meldal-Johnson (Writer), Fred Ladd (Writer), Chuck Lorre (Writer), Alt Matheson (Writer), R. Patrick Neary (Writer), Dianne Nezgoda (Writer), Jack Olesker (Writer), Glen Olson (Writer), Alfred A. Pegal (Writer), Jessica Radcliff (Writer), Ginger Roth (Writer), Jeffrey Scott (Writer), Karen Willson (Writer), S.S. Wilson (Writer), Erica Byrne (Writer)
Director: Mineo Gato, Kazuo Terada
Cast: Doug Stone), Mark Halloran), Brendan McKane), Graeme McKenna), Sharon Noble), Brennan Thicke)

I had a lot of M.A.S.K. toys as a kid. Together with the He-Man figures it was my favorite toys. Sadly I hardly saw episodes of this series as a kid. It only came early in the mornings (before 6 o'clock I think) and I never had a chance to catch it. But I had three retail video tapes of this series with one episode each. One of these episodes was the pilot episode. I have watched it countless of times as a kid.

Rating:

(From Tom's TV Pilots marathon on June 9th, 2012)