那些年，我們一起追的女孩 (You Are The Apple Of My Eye): It is a 2011 Taiwanese romance film which is based on a semi-autobiographical novel of the same name by Taiwanese author, Giddens Ko who also directed this film. The love story revolves on a prankster and mischievous student who eventually put effort on study and finally became a writer after encouragement and help from a beautiful girl sitting behind him in the classroom who is very popular among boys in the class. Both of them then started to develop love, but until the end the love does not reach a perfect ending, but their past emotions have transformed into a profound friendship and ever calmness in their hearts.  A relationship that never did happened but remained close in their hearts. Sweet. I like how the story flows, from the high school (longest) to university and the aftermath which every different phases on the relationship between the two main characters are delivered very brilliantly. The story development, with some narration from the male lead, is very good.

The story is simple, the script is simple (eventhough I still had some hard time trying to understand all the words because I do not know Mandarin well), but the effect delivered from this film is very clear and impacting. Simple yet meaningful. Less is more!  The film reminds us on our memories we had when we are in high school (secondary school) and even in university level, further influencing if we had a girl in the past that we have tried to date before (but for me, no…) Ahh, back to the film. I can pretty much agree with Serena Lim, a reviewer from ‘Today’ Singapore’s newspaper, that this film is a ‘gentle tale of a teenage romance’. Eventhough I have not had that during my teenage years, but I can still feel the strength of this film on delivering that particular theme to the audiences.

The performance by the casts, which centred on that particular group of the 5 boys and 2 girls, is good, especially the two main casts, Ko Chen-tung and Michelle Chen. In the recent Golden Horse Awards, the Best Newcomer award goes to Ko Chen-tung who is the male lead in this film, and all I can say is that he truly deserves it. ‘You Are The Apple Of My Eye’ is a film centred in love that reminded us that  it would be still good despite with not a very perfect ending, alongside with some other supporting themes present like humour, social life of teenagers, and friendship.

I particularly like the theme song for this film too, entitled ‘Those Years’. I have read the English translation for that song, and I felt touched from the lyric and the melody itself. That is a very good love song, which gets almost 20 million views from YouTube as of now, breaking every notable viewership record set by a Chinese video on Youtube. For this film alone, I would give quite a high rating; 8.0 out of 10. The film performed very well in Singapore, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan but not so that impressive in Malaysia. Maybe Malaysians don’t really prefer much on this type of movie.

——This movie is the first Taiwanese film released last year that I have watched, and also the 60th films overall released in year 2011 that I have watched. —–

The first month of the year is gone, and now let’s welcome a new month; February 2012. Once in every four years, 2012 is the year for February to have 29 days instead of 28 days. One extra day for this year, that falls at the end of this month. The month is a full month with no major public holidays, except for Nabi Muhammad Birthday, Thaipusam and Federal Territories Day (today) which the latter both are only allocated to specific states for holiday. Today is the Federal Territories Day, celebrated in the capital Kuala Lumpur, in administrative city of Putrajaya, and also a port city of Labuan. Internationally, this is the month of the beginning of Diamond Jubilee celebration of Queen Elizabeth II.

So now, what should I share for the header of my blog here for this new month?! After thinking for a while, I decided to share on a photo taken by myself, a photo from the India trip I had not long ago, and I choose arguably the most beautiful or fascinating one to be placed as the header for my blog reader to appreciate. What’s that picture? It’s the Taj Mahal! One of the seven wonders of the world, and no doubt one of the most beautiful man-made structures in this planet. I do emphasize on the strength of symmetry from this picture, which I even duplicated and mirrored exactly the ‘February 2012, www.vincentloy.wordpress.com’ tagline in the header to the other side in much more transparent layer…all that is to complement with the symmetrical beauty of Taj Mahal. Now the symmetrical strength of that picture is not at its best because of the people, and of the trees’ growth in the surrounding…but this picture is already the best I can have. Still very nice, isn’t it? Do you realize that the Taj Mahal is exactly in the middle of the picture?

I also like the phrase from UNESCO that describes Taj Mahal as the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world’s heritage. That is truly correct. Taj Mahal is the most beautiful place I have ever visited, and so I think a picture of it deserves the top spot, and hence placing it as the header for the month with some small edit works (as to not spoiling the original beauty of the wonder). I could still remember well the feeling of awe and WOW during the time when I first saw this structure from my eyes, not from television or any other else! So I guess, February would be the month for me to flashback and re-cap on the exciting and interesting days I had during the India trip last month, and the header for this month would definitely reminds me of that.

I have to say honestly, that it is far better than All’s Well Ends Well 2012, just like in last year when I Love Hong Kong is also better than All’s Well Ends Well 2011. Eventhough Sandra Ng had migrated from I Love Hong Kong last year to this year’s All’s Well Ends Well 2012, but with strong script and humour aspects delivered from I Love Hong Kong 2012, the latter still comes out very much successful and far more hilarious and entertaining than all the others. I Love Hong Kong 2012 still had a very strong line up of casts; Eric Tsang, Denise Ho, Teresa Mo, Evergreen Mak, Bosco Wong, William So and extra credit to the old man in the film, Stanley Fung. Despite getting very old already, Stanley Fung is the one that made all of us laugh the most from the movie. Many funny scenes from him are very memorable and outstanding. I also do very like the part where a spoof of a famous movie last year called ‘You Are The Apple Of My Eye’ is shown. Haha…that is the funniest part that even brought down tears from my eyes…eventhough I didn’t watch ‘You Are The Apple Of My Eye’, but I can seriously see the humour from it being adapted into ‘I Love Hong Kong 2012′. Absolutely fantastic!

Of course some time there is no logic to the funny stuff created from this movie, but who cares?! The most important thing is that all are able to make us laugh. And this movie did it pretty excellent. It is hardly any time in between for us to chill down and relax our mouth, because every scenes would definitely have something that would entertain you to the most. Now I find my mouth a bit tired of excessive laughing just now in the cinema, along with all the other audiences which I can see obvious similar responses from them. There are no boring moments. This movie is seriously fun, interesting and entertaining to watch. There are also some yellow-minded hilarious stuff from this movie. Take it lightly, as all that are meant for laughing purpose.

This movie in the end is not only for us to enjoy and laugh, there are also valuable messages we can learnt from this movie which also touches on the importance of family and love. No matter it’s going to be the end of the world in some days on the future or not, we should appreciate the time we had with our family and cherish the moments with our loved ones. All these are delivered in a much lighter and entertaining approach which is very brilliantly done. The performance by the casts is good, and it seems that there is no bad thing from this movie to talk about.

The movie had a very similar beginning and ending with ‘I Love Hong Kong’ back last year. However, everything now is delivered in a different style but still retaining a very huge amount of funny scenes for all of us to enjoy. Remember to stay till the last part after the credit has started showing because there is another portion of funny stuff awaiting you from Stanley Fung on his address as a news reporter, telling on false news regarding Hong Kong in a very hilarious manner. Out of 10 points, I would rate ‘I Love Hong Kong 2012′ a total of 8.0 out of 10. A very light, entertaining, interesting and hilarious movie best suited for a wonderful Chinese New Year in welcoming year of dragon in 2012.

For this year, after I have checked on the nomination list released not long ago, I am shocked, especially in the Best Picture category, which I have not even watched a single of the nominated pictures. I have to admit that I am more interested into sci-fi films last year like Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Captain America: The Avengers, Real Steel, etc. These type of movies would not get much recognition from Academy every year except for some little honours in effects and editing categories.

So for this year, I don’t even have the effort anymore to post the nomination list for this year’s Oscar awards. I have very little knowledge on almost all the actors, actresses, directors, scriptwriters, and pictures nominated. I have a bit more attention on the category of Best Animated Feature which I have watched three out of the five nominated pictures. Those are Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots, and Rango. But it is a bit shocking that Rio is not nominated in this category. I like Kung Fu Panda 2 more but I think based on Academy’s taste, Rango would win. That’s all for my prediction. So you see…this year’s Oscar is so different with last year’s Oscar, which I would have a lot of my prediction and my analysis to the nominated ones.

So, for this year’s Oscar…no interest….eemm, when is the awards going to take place? Who is going to be the host? I have no idea…I don’t even have the mood to check on the news regarding the awards anymore for this year.

At first I had an intention to watch ‘Wish and Switch’ because of its unique and fresh idea behind the story of the drama, which is on a website that allows trade for wish to come true. This means that if you want to wish for something and you got connected to a special website, you just need to type in the wish and get traded with something else for the wish to come true magically. Sounds interesting and magical right? But the whole drama doesn’t turn out to be as exciting as the idea itself.

Eventhough the drama is only 20 episodes long, but I can seriously feel that the story is being dragged all along, focusing on the small little issues from each characters in the series, including those supporting characters. I felt boring most of the time watching it, with very little climax or exciting scenes delivered to the audiences. Such interesting idea should have a good plot or storyline, but instead turned almost upside down from this drama.

The casts are moderate ones and not the most popular one besides only one main famous cast, Myolie Wu who had just won Best Actress last year. But I can still say that the acting performance is very good since TVB artistes are mainly experienced, including those in this drama. But one thing I wish to highlight is that the performance by Johnson Lee as the main male character in the drama is very bad. His acting is very moody and I hate his appearance in the drama. He acted so dumb, so plain, until to the point that I find that he has no acting skill at all. The pairing between him and Myolie Wu is not well too. I find that Johnson Lee should be more suitable and comfortable as the supporting character rather than becoming a male lead in a drama.

It is still the draggy and boring storyline turned the series into something very ordinary, and nothing much exciting to expect for after watching first few episodes. Even the final few episodes are not captivating enough. I can see an obvious twist to the plot and to the characters, but everything is done not successful enough, making the drama goes up, but stopped till the half way, and then goes down again. I don’t even see any much interesting scenes or moments from this drama. Quite disappointing. Out of 10 points, I can only rate ‘Wish and Switch’ a total of 6.2.

Me, together with my family, including my grandma who would turn 87 years old this year and my uncle had a great dinner just now at Chef Rasa Sayang Sharkfins Restaurant at Jalan Imbi in Kuala Lumpur. I don’t even realize that my grandma is turning 87 this year, which the age is so hard to achieve for most of us. I’m glad that my grandma is still staying here with us, but I can see her health, movement and brain condition is deteriorating. Hope everything went well for her.

Back to the dinner we had just now. It’s a grand dinner, with us given a room, a dinner that costs even more than the reunion dinner we had days ago before the Chinese New Year. This time, we had ‘poon choy’ which is a big bowl feast consisting of many ingredients served on a basin. The one that attracted me the most is definitely the abalone. The abalone is small, and we only get one each…can’t even go for one more. Seriously not enough. The other accompanying ingredients in the metal basin are prawns, mushrooms, beancurd, and some others.

Besides than eating poon choi, we also ordered some other dishes that costs quite a lot too; vegetables, codfish (I love codfish), and sharkfins. I like the sharkfins; it tastes very great, and the price also very great (RM42++ per person). Overall, the dinner costs over RM1300, while the ‘poon choy’ alone already costs almost RM450, not yet including the heavy service charges and government tax.

22nd January 2012 (Sunday)

The flight is in the afternoon, and so it’s a usual morning, but we need to get up quite early for the rituals to be done for Chinese New Year tomorrow, and also for last preparation for the one-week long trip. I bought quite a number of shirts and jackets for the trip, so that I can choose what to wear, without much restriction. Sometimes, I agree I do wear nice clothing. Haha…back to the trip, we reached Kuala Lumpur International Airport for international flight to New Delhi, the capital of India. This is the first time we met the other tour members in the group consisting of around 40 people; a very huge group.

After a comfortable time of approximately 5 hours with in-flight entertainment provided in the plane, we finally arrived at Indira Ghandhi International Airport. It’s a very beautiful and spectacular airport, which I hardly expected from a poor country like India. It’s very cold in Delhi at night, and I was shivering. We get back to the hotel, ready for the official touring days to start tomorrow. I can’t sleep well that night, probably due to the in-adaptability to the cold environment there at the moment.

23rd January 2012 (Monday)

Early in the morning, I woke up and took the first look over part of Delhi, the capital of India from my hotel room. I can see that many are poor, and that their living condition is not really well in this densely-populated city. The environment is dusty, and the street is quite filthy. Now I can see Kuala Lumpur is way better than Delhi. The houses there are of flat roof, with no clear planning to the construction of those houses. It’s a huge city!

Happy Chinese New Year! It’s the first day of the lunar new year of dragon! According to the tour itinerary, we would be heading to several tourist destinations in Delhi like Laxminarayan Temple, India Gate and Raj Ghat (a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi). All that were cancelled as the Republic Day of India (on 26th January) is coming very soon and all the major roads in the city area are closed including those places of attractions. We can only take a view and few pictures of Lotus Temple from a far location.

What an unlucky day, and I still wonder why the authority close the roads and places so many days earlier!? Very disappointed…the day ends up with no places to visit, and after lunch, we head straight to Agra city through a 5-hours bus ride. Along the bus ride, we get to stop by and visit a gigantic temple called Jaigurudev Temple, a white-marble temple with Mughal architecture, something similar to Taj Mahal too. It’s a very nice building anyway.

We finally arrived Agra, a city with much poorer condition, but famous for the main tourist attraction; Taj Mahal. It’s already night and we went straight to the hotel we are staying for dinner too. It’s Radisson Hotel, a very beautiful hotel with excellent buffet provided for our breakfast, lunch and dinner, but we felt bored after having the similar food for two days continuously.

24th January 2012 (Tuesday)

This is the place we have to visit definitely once you are in India; Taj Mahal. It is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The bus is not allowed to stop near there, and we have to get on electric-powered vehicle to get to the entrance to Taj Mahal, a huge mausoleum built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in dedication to his deceased wife, Mumtaz Mahal. There is a very stringent security check before entering the area bordered by walls, plazas and gardens before proceeding to the iconic white marble structure of Taj Mahal.

The place is filled with many people, and many of them are busy occupying those spaces where they can take beautiful photographs of Taj Mahal. It is very hard for us to queue up and squeeze in just to get a good spot and take photographs in a quick time before the others take over. Taj Mahal is no doubt very beautiful in photographs, but is definitely much more impressive when seen from the eyes directly. I really love the feeling of being there looking at the structure with emphasis on axis and symmetry.

I took a lot of photographs there. Since we are given not a very long time in the place, I have no time to visit the mosques and the other structures surrounding Taj Mahal. The time limits me to observe the surrounding in details, but overall I can still feel the wonder of the place. Leaving the place, we couldn’t also get any time to buy the cheap souvenirs from the many stalls lining up outside the place.

After Taj Mahal, we went to Agra Fort which is also known as Red Fort. It is a gigantic complex of structures with great defence and is famous for having a beautiful view over the nearby Taj Mahal. It takes quite a long time if you want to go through every corners in the fort, and so we only covered major areas in the fort; particularly some main corridors, the prison, castle building, halls and plazas. The structures there are very planned, massive and intriguing.

25th January 2012 (Wednesday)

In Agra, we saw a much poorer and worst condition of the streets. We even saw a huge empty ground filled with people, and try to guess what they are doing? The answer is that they are shitting! Yes…shitting, filling the ground (an open space of public toilet) with ample of human turds that I can even see some clearly from far, from inside the bus. Luckily, we are not out there at the time, if not, it must be very smelly and much more disgusting to only just seeing that.

Today we left Agra and proceed to Jaipur, another city to be a must-visit in India. Along the route, we went also to Fatehpur Sikri, an abandoned city complex up on a hill. The structures in there are not much different with those we have seen from Agra Fort but those are now in much more vibrant red colour. There is also a very vast plaza near the entrance that appears to be very welcoming to visitors with a very beautiful 360 degree view.

After a 5 hours bus ride, we finally arrived in Jaipur, the pink city. It is a well-planned city with many buildings in terracotta colour. Because there is no terracotta term in colour, hence the city is defined as pink city instead. We went to textile and carpet factory and shop to see the demonstration over the products, not buying. After that, we proceed to the nearby spice shop and painting shop, and also no buying in the end because all those products are not suitable for us. At night, we stayed at Cambay Spa and Resort, which is not really good as food served are very limited.

26th January 2012 (Thursday)

Today is a very beautiful and sunny day. The first destination is Amber Fort, a giant and impressive-looking fort with many structures up on a hill surrounded by thick walls. A long barrier wall is also spotted over the hills around the area, which is used to protect the old city in the past. It is something like Great Wall of China, but with shorter length (still quite long).

It is a very long queue for the elephant ride up to the fort which is above a hill. Luckily we came earlier, if not, much more time would be wasted. Finally, it’s our turn and it’s a very shaky ride up to the fort on a pathway full of elephants’ droppings; smelly! We arrived at a plaza surrounded by mainly yellow-coloured facades with beautiful backdrop of the hills and blue sky.

We went up and up, going through ramps, stairs, tunnels and corridors and it is no doubt that it is another huge and amazing structure to visit. The main attraction is the Hall of Glittering Mirrors where at night, one flame is enough to create a sparkling environment due to the multiple reflection from the reflective materials used to built the hall. The views from the fort to the old city of Jaipur is also quite impressive.

Then, we proceed to Jaipur’s waterfront to take a closer look to the Water Palace in the middle of a man-made lake. It is built over 200 years ago as a place of retreat for the past emperors. After a short while, we proceed to the gem stones and jewellery factory for a little demonstration and we were brought to the shop. No buying definitely.

Then, we went to Jantarmantar Astronomical Observatory for a look over the scientific knowledge, research and determination of Indian history in astronomy. Those weird-looking structures and equipments available there are for the purposes like knowing the time of a day, determining the horoscope of the month, determining the angle and height of the Sun from the Earth, and many others. I hardly understand how most of the structures work eventhough the tour guide had explained it briefly.

Then, we proceed to the City Palace complex of Jaipur which houses several museums now, including paintings, armors and weapons, royal clothings, jars, etc. No photography is allowed inside and so I can only take pictures from the outside. We are also being brought to a hall of royal gathering which is very impressive, and also to a plaza surrounded by intricate peacock-styled gates.

After the tour in the palace complex, we went to the nearby local bazaar for a quick and dangerous shopping. Why quick? Because we were given only an hour for that long street of shops. Why dangerous? Because it is very challenging to even just cross a small road, knowing that the traffic is bad and the reckless driving behaviour of the people. We only bought some magnets there after some bargaining. We also see the Wind Palace along the street, with over 900 windows for women to look out in the past.

27th January 2012 (Friday)

Today, we proceed back to Delhi through a 5-hours bus ride. It’s quite boring staying so long in the bus. As soon as we reached Delhi and had lunch in a Chinese and Japanese Restaurant, our bus passes by the roads surrounded by embassies, and also the Presidential House of India, which is the world’s largest house for the head of state. It contains over 300 rooms and is previously known as Viceroy’s House.

What’s more interesting is that we saw there are many roundabouts in New Delhi, and that those places are filled with many people loitering around, relaxing with some playing small games including poker cards under the sun. The roundabouts are turned to something like a park. Then, we reached India Gate, a gigantic War Memorial gate-like structure of over 40 metres high for the 90 000 Indian armies who lost their lives in World War I. It’s a Western-styled gate and is supposed to be the center of New Delhi, with a very visible strong axis leading to the Presidential House.

At first, the itinerary already mentioned a tour to Raj Ghat, a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, the father of independence of India. However, the place is still closed and we can’t get in there. Disappointed again. Then, the tour guide dropped the Lotus Temple tour too because it is quite far and might delay our time back to airport for flight home. Another bad decision! I couldn’t see the interior of the magnificent temple already! And yet, we are given an hour plus to visit a shopping mall near the airport.

It is so strict for the security check in the mall. You have to be inspected including your bags even before you can enter the mall. My goodness…I even give up on entering several shops in the mall as there are ample of guards watching you as if you are a thief. So, the shopping trip ended with nothing bought. Another disappointment. The authority was so afraid that we would bomb their place.

Finally, after an early dinner near the airport, we finally went back to the Indira Gandhi International Airport for flight back to Kuala Lumpur after a tiring trip. The procedures through the immigration and check-in are so annoying and wasting much of our time. The authority is too strict on that. Some last few pictures-taking and also some quick shopping in the airport before we leaved, and board the plane. We bought some chocolates, some small souvenirs (key chains, silver plate of Taj Mahal, and also a model of Taj Mahal). Okay…we were back to Kuala Lumpur International Airport in a very early morning, and we waited so long for that baggage reclaim. We had a breakfast at McDonalds in the airport before going back home for a sleep.

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That’s the end of my trip. Yes, it’s already ended, and the conclusion is that the trip came with some disappointments (not able to shop on products we wanted, and also not able to visit some places as mentioned in itinerary, some delays from the traffic congestion) and also some surprises (surprises over good quality of hotel and food we are attended to). It is definitely a uniquely-different trip, as we saw many new and memorable perspectives from India which appears to be a fresh location as this is our first time being in this huge country with population of over a billion people. It is still an unforgettable trip for me, and the experience gained from the trip is priceless. It is fun and certainly different visiting India. Want a future trip to India next time soon? Not really also….The trip is over and I’m back blogging as usual again…

(All the pictures from this post are taken by myself, please credit if you are sharing or re-using it…for the full 400 pictures of the trip, you can go to my facebook photo album and see all that fascinating images easily)

The film centered on four stories, involving 8 characters in 4 pairs, in which the females need help, and the males came for assistance with the end of a hug; either of fatherly hug, friend’s hug or lover’s hug. Four different stories unfold, which gave us much wider agendas to enjoy, while not letting us bored by focusing into only a single story for a whole movie. However, the best part of it would be the one involving Donnie Yen and Sandra Ng. Both did very well in the film, while Sandra Ng never disappoints us from her funny acts in films. Their story is the most interesting one, that covers friendship, music, and the most important; the most in humour. Their part is the most entertaining, while others are not bad too.

For Louis Koo and Kelly Chen part, there are some really funny moments from both of them, but I can’t really see the spark or chemistry from this pair from the film. Both are superstars; one in singing, and one in acting, and so they are in the film just because of their fame in the entertainment industry. For Chapman To and a girl (I forgot the name) who is blind in the film, it is fun looking at how Chapman always bluffing on her from his appearance to the places he brought her to. For the old man (I forgot his name but he always appear in this franchise of All’s Well Ends Well), I find it a bit unnecessary to even add another story just for him, with some minor casts for that portion of the film.

Overall, it is still an entertaining movie, but not really the one that will make you laugh hard. It is still fun watching this, but I actually expect more hilarious elements which are seriously lacking from this film. Only Sandra Ng saved the movie most of the time. This franchise had been performing not very well lately on this few years. Hope it can improve for a better and much funnier movie next year. The NG scenes from the final part of this film is much more funnier to watch. But now, for this one, it is still a very nice Chinese New Year-themed movie to watch, and out of 10 points, I rate ‘All’s Well Ends Well 2012′ a total of 6.9.

(This posts is written earlier and scheduled to be posted on the Chinese New Year week to prevent the emptiness over my blog for this whole week as I am not around and wouldn’t be able to online for this week) 

I am very sure that most of us especially the Malaysians would go for ‘The Viral Factor’ because of the Asian superstar Jay Chou’s presence in the film, and also that the film is shoot mainly in Kuala Lumpur, my home city. I go for the similar reasons. The story revolves on two main characters, a cop (Jay Chou) and a criminal (Nicholas Tse) finding themselves as brothers and gets attached together once they are both involved into a crime of mutated virus production for wealth by the baddies.

The story looks quite interesting, but the main idea of the virus production is not carried well throughout the film. It is now appears only to be a supporting idea to the whole story, not the main one as suggested from the title of the film itself. The main portion of the film is dedicated mostly to those gun-firing, explosions, punching and fighting scenes, which makes the film one of the best contemporary action-thriller film from Hong Kong. However, I find those elements are too much, way too excessive, which just gives not much excitement to us anymore after for a while.

It seems that the director, Dante Lam loved those gun-firing and explosions acts a lot, until to the point that I find it is really too much and unnecessary, that finally dragged the movie to a total length of over 2 hours! This film would be best if it tooks around 1 hour and 30 minutes or a bit more only. Luckily, the story still goes in a fast-paced development and it’s good. The performance by the main casts are generally well and acceptable, and special credit to Nicholas Tse that performed very good in the film. I like his stunts and acts from the film, which is so interesting and exciting to watch. For Jay Chou, he is obviously improving but still not really good enough. (sorry for Jay Chou’s fans…I’m just saying the truth)

Yeah, it’s nice seeing the movie that most of it took place at famous places in Kuala Lumpur that me and many others can recognize; Putrajaya, Port Klang, Pavilion KL, Golden Triangle, KLCC skyline, KLIA, KL Sentral, KTM Headquarters Building, and an old abandoned building in Pudu. It is a bit over that in one particular scene, they keep on showing the exterior of the flight showing Air Asia and Malaysia flag where Jay Chou is in the plane flying to Kuala Lumpur. However, do you actually need to show us the visual of Petronas Twin Towers so many times just to let us know that the story took place in the city?! That is too much as well. There is actually no need for that; the audiences already know the place (even non-Malaysians knew that already after the name of the city is written earlier in the film).

Luckily, the movie is not just about action-packed scenes. For that aspects, it is no doubt that ‘The Viral Factor’ is one of the best. There are some other aspects added, those that touched on emotional values; like the family relationship which started and ended the film very well. The two brothers (Jay Chou and Nicholas Tse), whom are the highlight of the film had their own moments and stunts, which are distributed quite evenly too. The family story further strengthened the actions by the two brothers. It is just that the virus aspect of the film needs more depth by further elaborating on the potential of the newly-produced virus and its consequences. That can be quite an interesting approach, but the director definitely put it aside and just brings his guns and bombs out for massive explosive moments only. And the sound effect is edited to be very much exaggerated in many parts, especially from those explosive and fighting scenes, until to the point that I find it irritating to my ears in some moments.

So, overall, the film is brilliant in contemporary action-thriller aspect, but too heavy emphasis on that would neglect some other aspects, especially the virus element that brought up the title of the film. So, it’s good in one side, but not really that well on the other side. There are many languages spoken in the film too (Cantonese, Mandarin, Malay, English), since the casts are not all from a single country, promoting international participation to the film with support from Malaysian authority. But overall, this movie is definitely worth-watching, exciting with ample of explosive scenes with a beautiful backdrop of KL streets and skylines. Out of 10 points, I rate ‘The Viral Factor’ a total of 7.5. Another long movie review from me.

(This post is written days earlier and would/is be posted during Chinese New Year week to deal with the emptiness of update over my blog for this whole week long when I was not around, enjoying my trip over at India)

(This post is written days earlier and scheduled to be posted on the first day of Chinese New Year as I am not around by the right time when this should be posted)

But still, I would offer a greeting to all the Chinese in the world no matter where you are or where I am (now at India), a prosperous and a wonderful new year with best of health and luck! Happy Chinese New Year to everyone especially to my family, my relatives, and my friends! And also to strangers out there (is that you?) who have stumbled upon my blog accidentally or by purpose. My greeting is for all! For non-Chinese,  enjoy your day too!

Gong Xi Fa Cai! 

That’s the most popular phrase used for Chinese New Year! This year, 2012, for Chinese now, we welcomed new year of dragon! Three years later would be year of goat, which is my year, and that’s the year I would be turning 24. But right now for this year, I am already 20 (21 in Chinese!) Let’s put aside the matter of age first, and focus on how we spend these few days of holiday and Chinese New Year festival.

Let us enjoy this Chinese New Year with great happiness; warmth from the family and fun from the friends! I’m having my Chinese New Year over at India, enjoying not the festival, but the trip itself. These few days of Chinese New Year for ordinary schedules from most of you guys couldn’t escape from visiting relatives, giving or receiving angpows (red packets), playing firecrackers, gambling, go for outing, etc. But for me, it turned out extraordinary every year when I would be going for oversea family trip at this period of time, which is the only longest holiday my dad could have from his busy work.

To add up the excitement, this post is actually my 818th post. If you translate that number into Chinese slang, 818 (发一发) would sounds very prosperous, a very lucky number combination, that wishes everyone a great fortune, and I add one more; great in health too. Hope this year of dragon would be a smooth and successful year for not only the Chinese, but for all too! For the Chinese, let’s enjoy this new year, celebrate it to the fullest, and have fun!

In the end, I sincerely wish everyone again a Happy Chinese New Year! Last but not least, I put again the image of my blog’s header below as it provides a very good feeling for this Chinese New Year! The larger version is above and would stays there until the end of the month. Ahha…I would be back to blog after this week, particularly sharing the experience I had over my India trip. Coming soon…