Showing posts with label 渡辺謙 Watanabe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 渡辺謙 Watanabe. Show all posts

Monday, September 5, 2011

Inception

Released Year: 2010
Directed by Christopher Nolan

Casted by:
Leonardo DiCaprio as Dominic "Dom" Cobb
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur
Ellen Page as Ariadne
Ken Watanabe as Mr. Saito
Cillian Murphy as Robert Michael Fischer
Marion Cotillard as Mallorie "Mal" Cobb
Story:
Dom Cobb and his partner Arthur perform illegal corporate espionage by entering the subconscious minds of their targets, using two-level "dream within a dream" strategies to extract valuable information. Dreamers are awakened either by a sudden shock (a "kick"), or by dying in the dream. Each of the extractors carries a totem, a personalized small object whose behavior is unpredictable to anyone except its owner, to determine whether they are in another person's dream. Cobb's totem is a spinning top which perpetually spins in the dream state. Cobb struggles with memories of his dead wife, Mal, who manifests within his dreams and tries to sabotage his efforts.

Cobb is approached by the wealthy Mr. Saito, Cobb's latest extraction target, asking him and his team to perform the act of "inception"; planting an idea within the person's subconscious mind. Saito wishes to break up the vast energy conglomerate of his competitor, the ailing Maurice Fischer, by planting this idea in his son, Robert Fischer, who will inherit the empire when his father dies. Should Cobb succeed, Saito promises to use his influence to clear Cobb of the murder charges for his wife's death, allowing Cobb to re-enter the United States and reunite with his children. Despite Arthur's insistence that inception is impossible, Cobb accepts the job and assembles his team: Eames, an identity forger; Yusuf, a chemist who concocts the powerful sedative needed to stabilize the three-layered shared dream required for inception; and Ariadne , a young architecture student tasked with designing the labyrinth of the dream landscapes. Saito insists on joining the team as an observer and to ensure the job is completed. While planning the inception, Ariadne learns of the guilt Cobb struggles with from Mal's suicide and his separation from his children when he fled the country as a fugitive.

The job is set in motion when Maurice Fischer dies and his son accompanies his father's body from Sydney to Los Angeles. During the flight, Cobb sedates Fischer, and the team bring him into the shared dream. At each stage, the member of the team who is "creating" the dream remains to generate the "kick", while the other team members fall asleep within the dream to travel further down into Fischer's subconscious. The dreamers will then ride a synchronized series of "kicks" (the van plunging off a bridge, a fall between hotel rooms, and a collapsing building) back up the levels to wake up to reality. In the first level, Yusuf's dream of a rainy city, the team successfully abducts Fischer, but the team is attacked by projections of Fischer's 'militarized subconscious', which have been trained to hunt and kill extractors, and Saito is mortally wounded. Due to the strength of Yusuf's sedative, however, dying in the dream will send them into Limbo, a deep subconscious level where they may lose their grip on reality and be trapped indefinitely.

Eames temporarily takes the appearance of Fischer's godfather Peter Browning to suggest that he reconsider his opinion of his father's will. Yusuf remains on the first level driving a van through the streets, while the remaining team members enter Arthur's dream, taking place in a corporate hotel. Cobb turns Fischer against his projection of Browning and persuades him to join the team as Arthur runs point. They descend to the third dream level, Eames' dream, a snowy mountain fortress designed by Ariadne. Fischer is told that it represents Browning's subconscious, but the team is really accessing Fischer's subconscious. Yusuf's evasive driving on the first level manifests as distorted gravity effects on the second, forcing Arthur to improvise a kick using an elevator shaft, and an avalanche on the third.

Saito succumbs to his wounds, and Cobb's projection of Mal sabotages the plan by shooting Fischer, killing him.Cobb and Ariadne enter Limbo to find Fischer and Saito. There, Cobb confronts his projection of Mal, who tries to convince him to stay with her and his kids in Limbo. Cobb refuses and confesses that he feels he was responsible for Mal's suicide. Using inception to help her escape from Limbo during a shared dream experience, he inspired in her the idea that her world wasn't real. Once she had returned to reality, she became convinced that she was still dreaming and needed to die in order to wake up, writing a letter claiming that Cobb was threatening her to try and convince him to accept their dream state and commit suicide with her. Through his confession, Cobb attains catharsis and chooses to remain in Limbo to search for Saito. Eames defibrillates Fischer to bring him back up to the third-level mountain fortress, where he enters a safe room and discovers and accepts the idea to split up his father's business empire.

Leaving Cobb behind, the team members escape by riding the kicks back up the levels of the dream. Cobb eventually finds an elderly Saito who has been waiting in Limbo for decades in dream time (just a short time in real time), the two help each other to remember their arrangement, and the team awakens on the flight. Cobb passes through U.S. customs, and reunites with his children at home, where he uses Mal's totem, a spinning top, to test reality, but is distracted by his children before he can see the result.
L² Scored: 4/10

L² Comment:
OMG~ this is such a heavy movie~ A dream in a dream, or should i say multiple dreams? This is so confuse and i feel so tired after watching the whole movie. Really sorry to say that, i don't like this movie even though i'm a huge fans of DiCarpio~ yawn~

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Shanghai

Released Year: 2010
Directed by Mikael Håfström

Casted by:
John Cusack as Paul Soames
鞏俐 Gong Li as Anna
周潤發 Chow Yun-Fat as Anthony Lan Ting
渡辺謙 Ken Watanabe as Tanake
Story:
Paul came to Shanghai to find out who killed his best friend whom is a spy for the America's agent. He met with Captain Tanake who's the lead Japanese army; Anthony the head of gangster and Anna the pretty wife of Anthony. Paul was attracted to this beautiful chinese lady but she was a very dangerous person.

Paul found out that before his friend died, he went to find a Japanese woman, Sumiko. After the mysterious killing of Paul's friend, Sumiko disappear within the thin air. Later on Paul realised that Anna has kidnapped Sumiko. Anna is doing this because Sumiko is Tanake's lovely mistress. She can threaten Tanake with Sumiko to take revenge on her father's death and help to kick out the Japanese from Shanghai.

A little chase of here and there between Paul and Anna to get Sumiko. But Sumiko was addicted to Opium due to Anna's instruction. Tanake get Anthony's help to get back Sumiko. Tanake even told Paul that he has killed his best friend because he sleep with Sumiko, and Japan has announced war to America by bombing the Pearl Harbor. Sumiko is suffering too much, Tanake has to end her life.

Tanake was angry with Anna by kidnapping his mistress and would like to take Anna back to the Japanese ambassador but was rejected by Anthony. Anthony used machine gun to shoot down his opponent but he himself was shot too on the tummy. With the help of Paul and Anna, the three of them went to the port side to leave by cruise. But Japanese has took over the port and Anthony was dead due to loss of too much blood.

Paul brought Anna along and finally they departed from Shanghai which has been attacked by Japanese. But Anna left the cruise in the Macau's port to go back for the political event and revenge. Paul went back to America and continue his life of becoming a journalist.
L² Scored: 5.5/10

L² Comment:
Frankly, war-kinda-movie is not my favorite all these while. I do doze off a bit when i'm watching this film. Though i do learn a lil bit of the World War II's history, but hey... its kinda boring actually~ haha

Gong Li is still gorgeous and lil bit too stunning in this film. Her role is much more important than Chow Yun Fat. And basically, i think Chow Yun Fat's character is kinda normal, anybody can just act even Chow is not casted. Seriously, i think they overpaid for this character.

But surprisingly, i think Cusack acted quite well in this movie. 2 thumbs up for him.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

Released Year: 2009
Directed by Paul Weitz

Casted by:
Chris Massoglia as Darren Shan
John C. Reilly as Larten Crepsley
Josh Hutcherson as Steve Leonard
Jessica Carlson as Rebecca
Ray Stevenson as Murlough
渡辺 謙 Ken Watanabe as Hibernius Tall
Salma Hayek as Madame Truska
Michael Cerveris as Desmond Tiny
Willem Dafoe as Gavner Purl
Story:
Darren is an A class student with a good future, his best friend is Steve who is a useless bump. Darren is fancy with spider while Steve fancy the vampire. Steve has been wishing to become a vampire to end up his pathetic life. On one night, they received a brochure from Mr Tiny to attend the freak show.

Despite how the school teacher refuse to let them attend the show, the 2 youngster went on the freak show by themselves. The show was host by Hibernius Tall, all kind of freak person appeared such as the wolfman, the woman who can grown her body again, the rib-man, the man who can eat everything even fire. And Madame Truska who can transform herself by touching whoever feel the future of Darren when she touched him. The final performer is Crepsley who Darren & Steve suspect he is a vampire. Crepsley warn them not to announce his identity or else he will kill them.

The school teacher brought the police to the show and force them to close down. To hide from the school, Darren and Steve hide in the dungeon. While Gavner and Crepsley have their discussion, they discover Steve is there. Steve begged Crepsley to turn him into a vampire, but after tasting Steve's blood, Crepsley state that Steve's blood is not good to become a vampire. Steve is pissed off and swear he will come back to hunt the vampire down. Darren's hideout was discovered too and he ran away by stealing the spider from Crepsley. In the meantime, Gavner inform that vampaneze has sent Murlough to kill Crepsley.

Next day, Steve discovered that Darren got the spider and try to kill it but was bitten instead. To get the antidote, Darren went back to the freak camp and find Crepsley. To take up his wife, Madame Truska's advice, Crepsley decided to turn Darren into half vampire in exchange for the antidote. Darren agree on the deal and promise to guard against Crepsley's coffin during daytime to prevent the attack from Murlough. Darren was found death the next day but actually is a fake death. Later at night, Crepsley come to dig out his coffin and brought him to stay in the freak camp. In another hand, Steve was jealous Darren got his dream and went to work with Murlough to slave the vampires.

Living in the freak camp, Darren was in the same room with the snake boy, Evra. Darren even fall in love with the monkey girl Rebecca. But Murlough brought Steve to attack by capturing Darren's family and Rebecca. Steve offered Darren to surrender and join them but was rejected. While fighting, Rebecca used her tail to open the knots and let go of the Shan's family. Crepsley is unable to fight against the 2 rivals and Rebecca fed Darren with her blood and become powerful to help Crepsley. Mr Tiny was watching all these and finally turn Murlough into a tiny person and went away with Steve.

Finally Darren and Crepsley went back to the Freak camp and other voted and agreed to let Darren stay. Crepsley even offered him a new coffin in the camp too.
L² Scored: 4/10

L² Comment:
This is from Darren Shan's novel series, "The Saga of Darren Shan". How weird, the author used his own name to be the main character, huh?!? The whole movie is not bad, quite good. Just like the freak show in "The Wolfgirl", you can see all sorts of freak showing their freak thing.

But i always thought vampire is monster/creatures but not freak. And both the new actor Chris Massoglia & Josh Hutcherson still need a lot of training on their acting... overall the movie is ok, nothing much excited about it...