David_Tjahyadi Reviews

Knights of Valour (2021)

Abomination

[4/10 · 11 August 2021]

It's like rewriting alamo and davey crocket somehow has a son and eliminates the whole mexican

I don't blame movie makers for having a bit of creative freedom but come on, the Guan Yu vs Wu arc are well known among all Romance of the three Kingdom fans, it's abomination how they rewrite this into some superhero movie.

Night in Paradise (2020)

Simple dish well done

[8/10 · 19 April 2021]

It's not the first, definitely not the last. There's no plot, we've all seen it before, not bragging but I knew how it'll went after the first 30 minutes, the whole story is just a rip off of so many other dark gangster drama, it won't end well with the protagonist.

But so what, it's cleverly done, gripping, and realistic, the couple started as a couple of wooden log acting wise and they really grow as the movie went on.

Can't say I loved the ending, but realistically it's the only way they can go.

If movie is a food, this one is just plain kimchi fried rice, but very well made it leaves a long lasting taste.

Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

As a chinese asian. It's entertaining

[8/10 · 23 September 2018]

Why so much hate for this movie?

It's a satire comedy that take a jab on the 0.001 percentile of the rich and famous.

And yes, asian (chinese in particular) are race picky (in a non bad way, just that they're not us mentality), the indians? The japanese? Try bringing a black or westerner home from abroad and tell your parent you'll marry them this is the sort of reaction you'll get. And let's not pretend this kind of attitudes only exists in asian, many hollywood movies too raises this issue. Nevertheless the 0.0001 percent dynasty of richest and famous will allow their crown jewels to marry a plain jane doe. This is not privy to asians.

It's a comedy and satire, no need to be butthurt. Infact this movie feels more realistic compared to the politically correct hollywood productions lately.

Have a popcorn, see the movie, envy the rich for their glamour and you go home feeling happier that being poor and average wasn't so bad.

Gun & Rose (1992)

The end of an era

[8/10 · 7 August 2018]

This movie was in my recollection one of the last one man gangster showdown (3 in this case) but still a marvelous nostalgic to the 90s hongkong gangster flick where the protagonist literally load himself with guns and go blazing.

Brings back lots of memories, it got everything i like from the era, alan tang was just oozing charisma all over.

Would recommend this if you like hongkong gangster movies

Sifu vs. Vampire (2014)

A reboot of the 80s vampire

[28 July 2015]

This movie attempts at rebooting the old hoping vampire and taoist priest with yellow robe and talisman burning.

A yawn fest to be honest, the story are all over the place, the character fails to develop any sort of bond with the audience. Ronald Cheng's character attempt at being funny ended up destroying any sort of continuity in the movie. Yuen Biao is too serius and not fit to polish Lau Ching Yun's boot, the later at least is good and seriously witty (I don't know how to describe a person being funny while not trying to be funny).

All sorts of cliché in this movie has been done in the past, the hoping jiang shi, the hold your breath and someone fart, the beauty with the boob, even the out of luck hot female ghost, the stupider than the stupid sidekicks, the sifu's sidekick good at kungfu, you name it.

Not a bad movie to spend your popcorn with, but there is really nothing new here other than reminiscing the old days of hoping vampire. Rigor Mortis was miles better as they have good choreography and actually rebooting instead of making it a shoot to shoot remake with modern costumes (and the costumes isn't even modern)

Yakuza Apocalypse (2015)

This is pure horse crap

[1/10 · 7 July 2015]

This is pure crap, I expect a stylish dark toned movie from Takashi Miike, he could have made this a simple revenge flick with a tragic ending and a nice fight along the way.

But for the love of god a frog man? Gavanesgue monster with exploding volcanoes? This is utterly crap even for Japanese weird comedy standard, the fight scene are terrible, and Yayan is wasted in this putrid garbage.

There's no drama, no character development, not even logical comedy (if there's any), it's just pure 2 hours of horse manure, and at least give us a f**** showdown we paid our money for, not you throw punch i throw punch kinds of crap.

Seems like Miike is trying so hard to make an abstract garbage which is really garbage and none of the abstract. I want my money back

Ip Man: The Final Fight (2013)

Milking Master Ip to the very last drop of his sweat

[4/10 · 22 April 2013]

We get it, yip man, ip man, what ever the dude name is.

He's a great grandmaster, a teacher of Bruce Lee (well, Bruce found another branch of martial arts long after anyway, but that's not the point), probably fought with the Japanese and stuff

With all due respect to Master Ip (the real master Ip)enough with this crap please, Anthony Wong is not a martial artist, and as much as the fight look OK-ish, Eric Tsang? Come on HK Film makers, you can do better than this, give me overrated gangster love drama of the 90 or even a one man gun frenzy heroes like Chow Yun Fat Enough of this overblown Ip Man shits, you've got 4000 years of Chinese History, pick one and make a fresh story out of it.

What's next? Ip man love life?

Can't believe Anthony Wong would wanna do this kind of cheap movies, it's not that bad in itself, but the fact that they cheaply trying to milk every penny from the grandmaster ip itself is disgusting

Dragon (2011)

Excellent atmosphere but going nowhere

[8/10 · 7 July 2011]

This started out as a very tense and psychological movie, with a mix of Chinese sherlock Holmes trying to solve mystery cases, and a few minutes onwards towards the middle we're having a shutter island moment, finished with a not so great but realistic (probably not) fighting scene.

All and all every bits of the parts holds their own, and it's a wonderful movie in terms of acting, Donnie's dad give a very menacing performance, and even the not so weak me still gasping when he holds his grandchildren towards the end, not sure what to expect.

Donnie's and Kaneshiro's complementing each other quite well in this movie, one the unpredictable cold with killer's instinct, the other with his own wit that could dismantle you in a sec, a detective with equally killer instinct.

Too bad the movie didn't pick on one of them and focus more, instead they try to swipe every single aspect which is too much to jumble and at the end too many loose knots are hurriedly tied.