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Lantern Films

Sin City 2 movie trailer is a piece of art

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Trailer for American action crime film Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. It’s a follow up to the 2005 film Sin City, and it consists of a few interlinking stories. Couldn’t care much about the plot to be frank, but pretty amused by the teaser itself. In cinema in the United States later this month.

The film stars an ensemble cast which includes returning members Mickey Rourke, Jessica Alba, Rosario Dawson, Bruce Willis, Powers Boothe (in his final film role) and Jaime King. While newcomers include Josh Brolin, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eva Green, Dennis Haysbert, Ray Liotta, Jamie Chung, Christopher Lloyd, Jeremy Piven, Christopher Meloni and Juno Temple. Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller.

Piranha 3DD movie trailer

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Official trailer for American comedy horror film Piranha 3DD. Directed by John Gulager and stars Danielle Panabaker, Matt Bush, David Koechner, Chris Zylka, Katrina Bowden, Gary Busey, Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd and David Hasselhoff. Scheduled for release in North America next month.

I remember watching the original Piranha movie when I was a kid. Can’t recall the details but it was scary, and I probably liked it more than Jaws. There were a few sequels; and I just found out that there was a reboot in 2010 which was decent according to reviews, I’ll try to find my way to that one.

This however, as a sequel to the 2010 film, doesn’t look promising. It’s like dumping a pool of prehistoric flesh eating fish into a Baywatch scene, a parody of some sort. They even have David Hasselhoff to make the idea obvious. Guess the movie is more on the comedy side instead of horror.

G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra movie trailer

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Movie trailer of “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra”, starring Channing Tatum, Rachel Nichols, Marlon Wayans, Sienna Miller, Ray Park and Lee Byung-hun etc.

I used to watch the cartoon series when I was a kid. I’m actually a bit confused with all those matrix-like and futuristic techno soldiers; can’t remember the cartoon being as technology advanced as what was shown in the video…

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The Forbidden Kingdom tops North American box office

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The Forbidden Kingdom, starring action superstars Jackie Chan and Jet Li, has topped the North American box office over the weekend. The Chinese-American film managed to haul in US$20.9 million in ticket sales (according to studio estimates) from Friday to Sunday in US and Canadian theatres.

This is the first film collaboration between the two big names, it obviously created plenty of buzz. Besides the duo, the movie also stars Collin Chou, Liu Yifei, Li Bingbing, and Michael Angarano. Directed by Rob Minkoff who’s best known for making The Lion King. Check out the official trailer…

Time travelling and Kung fu

The Forbidden Kingdom is about a young American who miraculously travels back to time to ancient China. There he meets with two masters of martial arts and a pretty girl. He then learns some kung fu and joins the quest to free the Monkey King and save the world. A bit more about the plot below…

Jason (Michael Angarano) is a teenager in Boston who’s a fan of martial arts films. He discovers a mysterious golden staff in a Chinese pawn shop, and somehow travels back to ancient China in the midst of an armed robbery.

Jason meets with Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) who tells him the story about the Monkey King who’s transformed into a stone statue by the evil Jade Emperor (Collin Chou). Lu also speaks of a prophecy, that a “seeker” with a golden staff will appear and rescue the King – obviously hinting at Jason.

The two begin their quest and meet Golden Sparrow (Liu Yifei) and Silent Monk (Jet Li) along the way. They have their own agenda but share a common enemy, the Jade Warlord.

While the group tries to teach Jason some Kung fu to make him more useful, the warlord sends Ni-Chang (Li Bingbing), a powerful witch and assassin, to retrieve the staff…

I’m going to leave the story here, otherwise it’s going to become a big spoiler. The film features elements from classic novel Journey to the West, and the characters of Golden Sparrow and Ni-Chang are inspired by other works too. The storyline is not related to any of those though.

Update and verdict

I watched the movie a couple of weeks later, it’s actually decent, better than I expected. The film also topped the box office in most Asian countries in the first few weeks, which is no no surprise at all.

Two main flaws tough. The films uses too much CGI, which unfortunately seems to be the norm these days. And despite starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li, Michael Angarano is the main character instead.

Nothing against Angarano, he did fine. Just felt that it’s a bit of waste featuring two Asian superstars in the same movie but created so few “sparks” in between. The trailer above pretty much shows everything the duo has done together in the film LoL.