Saturday Evening Recap

For those, who wish to watch the movies Shaolin Soccer and Wasabi, then don't read, as this posting may have spoilers in it.

The initial plan for Saturday Evening was to go to GNI at Hornsby, because Will wanted to do something.
However, due to a problem with Alison and her friends, Will decided to cancel to spend time with her for the night.
However, Julian, being so nice as ever, invited all of us around for DVD's or Videos at his place, something that we do on the every so often.

And so, we said yup, and came around.

Ada, Tim, Fengles, Guy, Myself, Kirsten and Jules then proceeded to crack ourselves up watching the two films, Shaolin Soccer, and Wasabi.

Shaolin Soccer.
It's a HK film, produced and starring Stephen Chow. It is absolutely hilarious, and provides some very good scenes using the soccer ball as defensive and offensive weaponry. They usage of Matrix style camera shots is so blatent, but well used to effect the comedy that it is.
The abilities of the brothers when they combat the Evil Team is very good too, and especially with the huge attack that Mui uses in the end fight to strip off all the clothing of the Evil Team Goalie..... it is well and truely fantastic.

The plot line is that a bunch of disillusioned Shaolin martial artists living in China/HK are recruited by a former soccer star, Golden Leg. Their goal is to win the championships for the $1 million prize, and to promote Shaolin, which was the task that their master had set them all to do before he left.

The Shaolin team goalie is a classic, with a wonderful Bruce Lee impersonation...

Wasabi.
Starring Jean Reno and Ryoko Hirosue.
It's a French film, that is actually filmed in Japan. Spoken in mixture of french and japanese.
The plot line is simple to begin with, but convolutes as it goes, providing some good fun.
The main character, Hubert (Jean Reno) is forced to take a break due to his "unconventional" methods in policing, as he is a ex-special forces agent, and his methods usually involve excessive use of force and violence, but people don't actually die, just end up in traction or so.
As he is given the forced holiday, he is contacted by a Japanese Soliciter, and informed that the love of his life died, and that he was the sole legatee of her will. And so he travels to Japan to execute the will and see her before she is cremated. That is the simple part.

The convolution occurs when he discovers that she ran away from him 19 years ago (which he knows of course!) but she had a child, and he now has a 19 year old daughter, Yumi(Ryoko Hirosue)[She's very cute in some scenes with a very bubbly personality in some aspects]. Then to add to it all, the mother's death is via cyanide, and her bank account somehow contains $200 million Euros....... and there are men in suits and sunglasses tailing them around town.

Some great action scenes, some big weaponry too.
Some good laughs too, but a little more serious than Shoalin Soccer, but still a really good film too.

You should check them both out if you can.
If you want to send me two blank CD's I can copy the VCD of Shaolin Soccer and send it back. =)