Jurassic world

The biggest grossing movie release in 2015 and one of the top 5 grossing movies of all time see's the return of Steven Spielbergs Jurassic Park franchise, although the story was very similar to the first Jurassic Park, this time in the fifth outing it's more bigger, hence the title "Jurassic World" so this movie looks very good on the big screen. Chris Pratt plays a good dinosaur expert and impressive in his interactions with the four velociraptors he had trained and as he his the expert in this movie you know something is going to go very wrong when he desplays his discontent for the creation of a new dinosaur (Indominus rex) through genetic modification. If you've seen the other Jurassic Park films you'll kind of know whats going to happen in this one but it is still great fun to watch especially for the younger crowd which the movie is aimed at. 

Synopsis and trailer

Located off the coast of Costa Rica, the Jurassic World luxury resort provides a habitat for an array of genetically engineered dinosaurs, including the vicious and intelligent Indominus rex. When the massive creature escapes, it sets off a chain reaction that causes the other dinos to run amok. Now it's up to a former military man and animal expert (Chris Pratt) to use his special skills to save two young brothers and the rest of the tourists from an all-out, prehistoric assault.

Director: Colin Trevorrow

Story By: Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver

Running time: 2h 4m

Film series: Jurassic Park

Genres: Action, Science fiction, Adventure, Thriller

Shogun Assassin

Originally a Manga (comic)

Lone Wolf And Cub

Released in 1980, Shogun Assassin was actually compiled from two parts of a Japanese series called "Lone Wolf And Cub", which was re-edited together and dubbed from Japanese into English by Robert Houston, after the rights were bought by David Weisman, an American film producer and director. The original story came from a Japanese manga (comic) series from the 1970s, created by the writer Kazuo Koike and the artist Goseki Kojima, the story was adapted into six films, four plays, and a television series. 

This movie is relentless in its depiction of a samurai's avenging blade, as limbs are decapitated and fountains of blood flow all the way through the movie. When this movie arrived in the U.K in 1983 it was labelled a "video nasty" and went through some controversy involving the bloody violence, which lead to copies being seized but the prosecution attempt was later dropped and the movie was given a 18 certificate in a pre-cut and re-release in 1992. I must say the fight scenes were very well executed in this movie, and yes i meant that in every sense of the word, and as the movie gets straight to the nitty gritty from the opening scene's, i expected nothing less from a film called Shogun Assassin. Since both Lone Wolf and cub (father and child) never really had much of a dialogue in this movie, the somewhat eerie child voice of Lone wolf's cub, narrates both he's and his fathers journey through out the movie, coupled with the electronic scoring, both elements added some originality and zest to the film. A cult classic amongst moviegoers and matial arts fans alike, this movie is basically about an assassin for hire on the run from his former paranoid boss after his wife was murdererd by his bosses ninja's who were sent to kill him also, after winning his freedom by killing his bosses son in a duel, Lone Wolf still has to watch his back at every turn since his former boss the Shogun is still after him. A scene that offers some nail biting suspence was when Lone Wolf offers his child a life or death choice through either choosing a ball or a sword, which would determine whether he will join his mother in the after life or go on with his father, that was a edgy moment amongst other scenes in which the child proves himself to be his fathers son everytime.

Many of the lines from this movie are sampled by hip-hop artist and Wu-Tang Clan member the GZA on his 1995 album "Liquid Swords", which was the first time i heard about "Shogun Assassin".

 

Gza's Liquid Swords album cover

Synopsis and trailer 

Ogami Ittō, better known as "Lone Wolf" (Tomisaburô Wakayama), is the Shogun's former top executioner, who is forced to become an assassin after his wife is murdered by the shogun's ninja's. He travels throughout the land with his son Daigorō in a cart and together they seek revenge against the Shogun. They are known as the "Lone Wolf and Cub".

Directed by: Robert Houston
Produced by: Shintaro Katsu, Robert Houston
Written by: Bobby Houston
Based on: Lone Wolf and Cub by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima
Starring: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Kayo Matsuo, Minoru Ôki
Shôgen Nitta, Shin Kishida, Akihiro Tomikawa
Music by: Hideaki Sakurai
Cinematography: Chishi Makiura
Edited by: Lee Percy, Toshio Taniguchi
Distributed by: Toho

Release dates: November 11, 1980

Running time: 1hr 29mins

Armour Of God

Released in 1986, Armour Of God was one of the first movies i saw of Jackie Chan, who wrote, directed and starred in what can be considered as one of his best works, not only does it have some of the best fight scenes in martial arts movie history, it can also be compared to a chinese Indiana Jones type movie, that takes you on spectacular adventure. Although Armour Of God might look dated nowadays, its still a good watch, for the great stunts, fight scenes and comedy aspects that Jackie Chan delivers well to the screen, which almost cost him his life, as he fell and hit his head on a rock whiles filming a stunt, this is why most of the movies middle part were more of a romantic comedy because production had to wait for Jackie to recover for the action scenes, and boy did he deliver in the end with an epic fight scene with four women, which is one of the best fight scenes ever in movie history, so look out for that.

Synopsis and trailer

Jackie, a.k.a. "Asian Hawk" (Jackie Chan), is a former musician who becomes an adventurer and treasure hunter, Jackie reunites with his former band mate Alan (Alan Tam), who seeks his help as his girlfriend Lorelei (Rosamund Kwan) has been kidnapped by an evil religious cult as a means of acquiring Jackie's services. The cult possesses two pieces of a legendary armour called the "Armour of God", and they intend to have Jackie bring them the three remaining armour pieces.

Directed by: Jackie Chan, Eric Tsang

Produced by: Leonard Ho, Chua Lam

Written by: Jackie Chan, John Sheppard, Eric Tsang

Starring: Jackie Chan, Alan Tam, Lola Forner, Rosamund Kwan

Music by: Michael Lai, Tang Siu Lam

Cinematography: Peter Ngor, Robert Thompson, Arthur Wong, Cheung Yiu Cho

Edited by: Peter Cheung

Production company: Golden Harvest, Goldenway Films Ltd.
Distributed by: Golden Harvest, Media Asia

Running time: 1hr 37mins

Release dates: 1986 (Japan)

21 January 1987 (Hong Kong)

Bahubali: The Beginning



Bahubali (strong arms)

This movie is truly what blockbusters are made of, Bahubali: The Beginning, is a visually stunning and gripping first part of a two-part series, which is India's most expensive production to date, released worldwide on 10 July 2015, and recieving positive reviews from critics, this movie is also the highest-grossing opening for an Indian film at the box-office. 'Bahubali' which translates into English as 'strong arms' is an epic historical, action, adventure, directed by S. S. Rajamouli, and tells the tale of  a clash for the control of a kingdom. In the opening scene the movie wastes no time in keeping you on the egde of your seat with suspense as it leads to the epic scene of the hand reaching out the rushing river whiles cradling a baby. The singing and dancing that Bollywood is known for is kept to a minimum in this movie, in order to keep it more serious no doubt, because lets be honest, it would'nt be practical to break into a song and dance during a battle, which this movie is essentially about, but they did make the singing and dancing work well in the more sensual scenes without over doing it, which brings me to mentioning that the use of slow motion in this movie was also well thought out, during the sensual scenes to the battle sequenses, which are also magnificent. The second part of the two-part series, Bahubali: The Conclusion will be released in 2016.


Synopsis and trailer

 After king 'Amarendra Bahubali', of a kingdom known as Mahishmati is slayed and his queen 'Devasena' is thrown into captivitity, his son is helped to escape a terrible fate. Saved from the brink of death as a baby, the prince was named by his adoptive parents as 'Shivadu' and grows up amongst a tribe on a hill, not knowing of his royal bloodline. On deciding to help his beautiful love interest and rebel fighter 'Avanthika' on a rescue mission, he discovers that he's heir to the throne. 

CAST

PRABHAS as SHIVUDU & BAHUBALI
            RANA DAGGUBATI  as BHALLALADEVA
            ANUSHKA SHETTY  as DEVASENA
            TAMANNAAH BHATIA as AVANTHIKA
         with
         RAMYA KRISHNAN
        as
        SIVAGAMI

Avanthika, lead female role and love interest

of Bahubali.

Directed by: S. S. Rajamouli
Produced by: Prasad Devineni
Shobu Yarlagadda

Screenplay by: S. S. Rajamouli
Story by: V. Vijayendra Prasad Music by: M. M. Keeravani
Cinematography: K. K. Senthil Kumar
Edited by: Kotagiri Venkateswara RaoProduction company: Arka Media Work

Running time: 2hr 39mins

Release dates: 10 July 2015

Hard Boiled

If you claim to like and know about action shoot em up's, and you've never seen or heard of this classic, then i'm sorry my friend, because you've been left in the dark. Released in 1992, Hard Boiled is a shoot em up fest of epic proportion that lasts for over two hours. Written and directed by the critically aclaimed John Woo, who is famous for this type of movie's and his trademark use of slow-motion, With this being his best work in my opinion, and the last one he made in Hong Kong before his American endevours, John Woo never really impressed me again as much as he did with this movie, Hard Boiled is a classic, that should be on every action junkies list. Even though the action was prominent in this movie, i liked the way the Jazz soundtrack composed by Michael Gibbs, smooths things over at times when it was needed to give the action a break, it was also a good idea allowing the lead role of Inspector "Tequila" Yuen, played by Chow Yun-fat, to be able to play the clarinet, i felt that these aspects added depth to the character and movie, also the dark humour at times allowed the movie not to take itself too seriously, which i also enjoyed, and not forgetting the finale sequence of the hospital, which are amongst the best action scenes ever, and probably inspired the movies original poster. Hard Boiled picked up Winner of the 1993 Hong Kong Film Award for Best Editing, and shot John woo and Chow yun-fat into the Hollywood limelight, i'm hoping that one day, Woo and Chow decide to work together like this again, because they have such great chemistry. A video game sequel titled Stranglehold was released in 2007, developed in collaboration with John Woo, and even stars Chow Yun-fat in a revival of his role as the Hard boiled cop, Stranglehold was cool and worth looking into if you're a gamer, it was also the last time we saw Woo and Chow colaborate since the movie, and would be great to see them work together again on a movie project.

"Give a man a gun and he thinks he's Superman. Give him two and he thinks he's God."

Quote from the movie

Video game sequel of Hard Boiled

Chow Yun-fat says this about the film in Hong Kong Action Cinema: "The film is seventy percent action, thirty percent story!" But this increase in action may have some base in reality. Chow goes on to say "In America, the policeman must shout 'stop' before he shoots you. Here [in Hong Kong], he can just shoot you any time, without warning! That comes across in the films."

Hard boiled was filmed in the 90's during the time of Asia's rising crime rate when triads were very active, thats why John Woo decided to create the character of 'Tequila' as a hero cop figure, to give the people hope, he himself made a cameo apearance as a bartender in a scene where he can be seen conversing with Tequila.

Synopsis and trailer



Chow Yun-fat

A cop who loses his partner in a shoot-out with gun smugglers goes on a mission to catch them. In order to get closer to the leaders of the ring he joins forces with an undercover cop who's working as a gangster hitman. They use all means of excessive force to find them.

Director: John Woo

John Woo

Producers: Terence Chang, Linda Kuk,
Written by: Gorden Chan, Barry Wong,
Story by: John Woo
Starring: Chow Yun-fat,  Tony Leung,  Chiu-Wai,  Teresa Mo,

Music by: Michael Gibbs
Cinematography: Wang Wing-Heng
Edited by: John Woo Jack Ah David Wu Kai Kit-Wai

Production company: Golden Princess Film Production, Milestone Pictures

Distributed by: Golden Princess Film Production (Hong Kong)

Running time: 1hr 28mins
Country: Hong Kong
Language: Cantonese, English Dubbed

Release date: 16 April 1992 (Hong Kong)

Attack On Titan

Attack On Titan is a Japanese manga (comic) that dates back to 2009, The story is set in a world where humanity lives inside cities surrounded by enormous walls as defence against the Titans, gigantic, humanoid creatures that eat humans. A television anime adaptation came out in 2013, after only the first series, plans went ahead to make the feature lenght movie, like many other people, i enjoyed the first series of the anime show and was eagerly anticipating the second. When news of the movie came out i was pleasently surprised and although changes were made to the story and main characters, the movie still stuck with the core elements of the original while introducing us to new characters and ideas, which works for me, and something that does not change in true manga action fashion is the gore, so yes expect a lot of gore. The movie was released on 1 August 2015 and went straight to number-one on its opening in Japan, followed by a second part, Attack On Titan: End Of The World, to be released on 19 September 2015, also a second series of the anime version as been confirmed for 2016, so theres quiet a few things to look foward to with this great franchise.

Synopsis and trailer

            

                 Military faction emblems for guards of the city

Trainee Squard,  Garrison Corps,  Survey Corps,  Military Police,

Over one hundred years ago before the story begins, giant humanoid creatures called Titans appeared and nearly wiped out humanity by devouring and feasting on them. What remains of humanity now resides within three enormous concreet walls: the outermost is Wall Maria, the middle wall is Wall Rosé and the innermost is Wall Sina, with three military factions inside these walls, humanity has lived in peace for one hundred years with many people growing up never seeing a Titan. This all changed when one day, a giant 60-meter tall Titan mysteriously appears and breaches the outer wall of the Shiganshina district, a town at Wall Maria, allowing the smaller Titans to invade the district then the carnage begins all over again, humanities only hope are the brave men and women in the military who are trained to kill the giant monsters. A young man in particular by the name of Eren, stood up to the task, along with two of his friends Mikasa and Armin, they join the militery to bring the battle to the Titans.

Second trailer

(Female lead role)

(Male lead role)

  

Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy

Duration: 1hr 30mins

Director: Shinji Higuchi
Screenplay: Tomohiro Machiyama, Yuusuke Watanabe
Original creator: Hajime Isayama
Character Design: Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Kouji Tajima, Takayuki Takeya 
Art Director: Takeshi Shimizu
Director of Photography: Shouji Ehara

Release date: Part 1, 1 August 2015, Part 2, 19 September 2015.

Njinga, Rainha de Angola (Nzinga, Queen of Angola)



Njinga, Rainha de Angola (Nzinga, Queen of Angola) is the 2013 movie about the true story of a leader, warrior and queen, who fought against the Portuguese and their expanding slave trade in Central Africa. This movie was very well directed with a good cast, custumes and breathtaking scenes that pulls the viewer into the moment. Directed by the portuguese director Sergio Graciano, and starring Miss Angola 2008 (Lesliana Pereira) in lead role, who by the way does a excellent job in bringing the character to life, in which lead to her role being nominated for a best actress award in 2015. The story of Queen Njinga alone makes this a worthwhile watch as a part of African history, something that the people of African descent can be proud of rather than the American slave movies that we so often see and i personally grew tired of. This movie is a captivating adventure of epic proportion that everybody, not just Africans should watch.

 Synopsis and trailer

 In 17th century Angola, a woman leads her kingdom in a 40-year struggle for freedom and independence. Her name is Njinga. She will be known as Queen Njinga. Born into a patriarchal society, Njinga defied tradition to become queen at the age of 50 with the aim of ensuring her people were kept safe from the Portuguese slave traders. A true story of unrivalled determination, Njinga stands today as a symbol of resistance, fully embodying the motto: “those who fight, fight to win”.

Lesliana Pereira

The lead role was played by Lesliana Pereira the Angolan beauty queen who represented Angola in Miss Universe 2008. Lesliana is also a model, T.V presenter and fashionista.

Lesliana in character as Queen Njinga

More on the story of Queen Njinga

Queen Njinga (1583-1663) Also known as Ana de Sousa Njinga Mbande was a 17th century queen of the Ndongo and Matamba Kingdoms of the Mbundu people in Angola, South West Africa. As ruler of Matamba, She was a military leader who waged war against the  Portuguese,European invaders and inspired other African leaders to join in the resistance. Njinga was born to Ngola (ruler) Kiluanji and Kangela in 1583. According to tradition, she was named Njinga because her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck (the Kimbundu verb kujinga means to twist or turn). It was said to be an indication that the person who had this characteristic would be proud and haughty. According to her recollections later in life, she was greatly favored by her father, who allowed her to witness as he governed his kingdom, and who carried her with him to war. She also had a brother, Ngola Mbandi and two sisters Kifunji and Mukambu. She lived during a period when the Atlantic slave trade and the consolidation of power by the Portuguese in the region were growing rapidly. Njinga first appears in the historical record as the envoy of her brother, the Ngola (the ruler), Ngola Mbande, at a peace conference with the Portuguese governor João Correia de Sousa in Luanda in 1622.

Title: Njinga, Rainha de Angola (Nzinga, Queen of Angola)
Category: History, Biography, Adventure
Duration: 1h 49m
Director: Sergio Graciano
Release Year: 2013
Language: Portuguese
 

Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice

So DC as finally merged two of their biggest franchise in a full lenth feature film for the first time, we all know its been a long time coming because we've seen it done in comic books and cartoon animations many times before but never like this. Lots of fans have been waiting for this moment and judging by the new and detailed trailer that features Lex Luthor and wonder woman, amongst others, it seems like this is going to be the begining of the story that leads into the the formation of Justice League (DC's equivalent to Marvels Avengers) it's also been confirmed that Aquaman and Cyborg will be making an appearence. With all that in mind it will be interesting to see how the director Zack Snyder who also directed the last Superman movie brings it all to the big screen. The film was announced at 2013 after the release of Superman Man of Steel.

"... after Man of Steel finished and we started talking about what would be in the next movie, I started subtly mentioning that it would be cool if he faced Batman... You're in a story meeting talking about, like, who should [Superman] fight if he fought this giant alien threat Zod who was basically his equal physically, from his planet, fighting on our turf... You know, who to fight next?... But I'm not gonna say at all that when I took the job to do Man of Steel that I did it in a subversive way to get to Batman. I really believe that only after contemplating who could face [Superman] did Batman come into the picture."

— Snyder, on how Batman came into the film

Ben Affleck plays a older and more mature Caped Crusader with grey hairs and unshaven look whiles Superman is still played by the british actor Henry Cavill from the last Superman movie.

Ben Affleck                                                                          Henry Cavill

Official Warner Bros. synopsis and trailer.

“Fearing the actions of a god-like Super Hero left unchecked, Gotham City’s own formidable, forceful vigilante takes on Metropolis’s most revered, modern-day savior, while the world wrestles with what sort of hero it really needs. And with Batman and Superman at war with one another, a new threat quickly arises, putting mankind in greater danger than it’s ever known before.”

 This movie is set to expand and bring the DC comic book universe to the big screen, it's already been unveiled that cast members from Batman V Superman (Dawn Of Justice) will also star in Justice League movies and other spin-off's.

Justice League

 Here's the DC Entertainment break down of the trailer

Directed by: Zack Snyder
Produced by: Charles Roven, Deborah Snyder
Written by: Chris Terrio, David S. Goyer
Based on Characters published by: DC Comics
Starring: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot
Music by: Hans Zimmer
Cinematography: Larry Fong
Edited by: David Brenner
Production company: DC Entertainment, Atlas Entertainment, RatPac Entertainment, Cruel and Unusual Films,
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Country: United States 
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Release dates: March 25, 2016 (United States)