The Monkey King 2 西游记之孙悟空三打白骨精

 Released Year: 2016

Directed by 鄭保瑞 Cheang Poh Sui

Casted by:

郭富城 Aaron Kwok as 孙悟空 Sun Wukong

巩俐 Gong Li as 白骨精 Baigujing

冯绍峰 William Feng as 唐僧 Tang Sanzang

小沈阳 Xiao Shen Yang as 猪八戒 Zhu Bajie

罗仲谦 Him Law as 沙僧 Sha Wujing

费翔 Fei Xiang as 云海西国国王 King of Yun Hai Xi Kingdom

陈慧琳 Kelly Chen as 观世音菩萨 Guan Yin

魏璐 Lu Weu as 蛇精 Snake Evil

齐浠儿 Xi'er Qi as 蝙蝠精 Bat Evil

母其弥雅 Miya Muqi as 箭猪精 Pig Evil

 Story:

500 years after Sun Wukong's imprisonment under the Five Fingers Mountain, a young Buddhist monk Tang Sanzang is sent on a journey to India to collect Buddha's scriptures. On his travels he accidentally frees Wukong and the Monkey King learns from the Mercy Goddess that he has to protect the monk throughout the journey. They also meet Zhu Baije, a lustful pig demon, and Sha Wujing, a djinn-like monk. All three demons accept Sanzang as their Master.

The company travel to the Yun Hai Xi Kingdom, a land terrorized by the White Bone Demon who snatches children. As the demoness learns about Sanzang, she decides to eat him in order to stop her reincarnation cycle and achieve everlasting demon-hood. She transforms into an old woman and beguiles the group into her cottage in the woods. While her disguised minions lure Wukong, Baije and Wujing into the forest, the demoness tells Sanzang a story about how she was forced to marry as a young girl, and when her village suffered with famine, the people blamed her for it, even calling her an evil demon, and left her atop a cliff as a sacrifice for the gods. As Sanzang comforts the old lady, she attempts to kill him, but is stopped by Wukong who has seen through her disguise with his Fiery Eyes. He kills the old lady and the demoness escapes. Sanzang and the others don't believe Wukong that all the women he murdered were demons, and blame him for killing the innocent.

The group arrives to the kingdom's capital and the King throws a feast for them, begging Sanzang to exorcise the bloodthirsty demoness. Suddenly the Lady White appears and demands the monk, but he expresses his desire to enlighten her. She tries to persuade Wukong to let her eat the monk, because only then he will be free of the spell that subdues his will. With Sun deceiving the demoness, a fight ensues. During the chaos, the King's guards kidnap Sanzang, but before the King kills the monk in order to cure himself of a disease - as he has been actually kidnapping all the children and blaming the White Bone Demon - Wukong saves him and the children as well. All of the group are celebrated as heroes, but as a little girl approaches Tanzang, Wukong kills her and her mother as well, seeing the demoness possessing them. That angers Sanzang, and, accusing him of seeing demons everywhere, orders Wukong to leave. Wukong flies away, but as soon as he does, the White Demon kidnaps Sanzang.

Baije and Wujing decide to disband, Baije heading to the Flower-Fruit Mountain to beg Wukong for help, and Wujing rushing to the demoness' lair. Baije arrives at the mountain, but Wukong's not there. In her lair, the demoness confesses to the monk that the story she had told him earlier was true, recounting her previous life. Sanzang gets to understand why she doesn't want to become human again, and gives up. Outside the cave, Wujing fights the the Lady White's skeleton army, and later is joined by Baije and Wukong, who saves Sanzang. After a hard battle, the White Bone Demon is defeated by the Monkey King. However, Sanzang pleads Buddha to save her soul, only to be told he would have to give up his own life in order to save her. Tanzang accepts that and the demoness is absorbed into his body. In his subconsciousness, the monk tells the Lady White he will do anything to help her, but she refuses, rather destroying herself. In the real world, Sanzang pleads Wukong to kill him, which he refuses to do. The monk tells him he desires to help the demoness change her doom, no matter how many lives it will take to accomplish. Wukong tearfully agrees, promising to wait for his return forever, and kills him. Because of Sanzang's sacrifice, the demoness is led to her reincarnation to human, finally free of her pain and hatred.

Some time later, Wukong and his friends still wait for the return of the monk, but continue their journey to the Thunder Monastery. It seems that Sanzang actually reenters life, as a human finger cracks through the Buddha statue Wukong is carrying with him.

 L² Scored: 6.5/10

L² Comment:

Due to Donnie Yen not able to act in this sequence, Aaron Kwok was given the chance to took up the main character and fight against Gong Li the diva. Comparing to the first movie, this is definitely much more better and follow more on the fiction. Well, if they have anymore sequence, will it be Donnie Yen or Aaron Kwok acting as the Monkey King?

The Gigolo 2 鴨王2

Released Year: 2016

Directed by 姜國民 Venus Keung

Casted by:

何浩文 Dominic Ho as 何巨峯 Fung

文凱玲 Connie Man as Monica

林莉嫻 Leslie Lam as Isabel

林子善 Jazz Lam as Dick

鍾采羲 Iris Chung as Sushi

麥家琪 Teresa Mak as 二筒姐 Yi Tung

何華超 Tony Ho as 大 Deal 哥 Big Dog

梁敏儀 Winnie Leung as Mona

 Story:

After Fung Ho claimed to be top of his career, he is now a semi-retired gigolo and runs a nightclub named High X. Monica and Sushi are two best friends who are extras in film and television for survivals. At Sushi's birthday party, Monica gets to know Fung when she cant find a taxi to get home and Fung offers to drive her back. After filiming, Yi Tung, a madam comes to the set and asks Sushi if she wants to go for a boat party where there are rich guys. Sushi asks Monica along too despite her reluctance. Halfway throughout the boat party, Monica receives a sms from her elder brother that her mother has been sent to the hospital. She panicks as she is unable to go onshore. She meets Fung who is at the party too and he decides to take her back onshore on his speedboat. After fetching her mother home , Monica holds a family meeting with her siblings to decide who takes care of her mother but her siblings refuse to take the responsibility and she falls out with them. Her mother also has to undergo surgery. In order to get enough money for the high-cost surgery, Monica decides to join Sushi to be a prostitute. However, she is shy and nervous about sex, especially about anal sex and blowjobs. Sushi recommends her to Fung to learn the sex craft and after some coaching by Fung, she manages to overcome her problem and becomes an expert at pleasuring men. She also fell in love with Fung while being coached by Fung.

After she graduated from Fung, she sees Fung together with another girl Isabel, a lawyer who is going to be married and feels unhappy as a result. Sushi and her boyfriend Dick want to buy an apartment and are short of cash. Yi Tung recommends them to Big Dog but Dick feels apprehensive as he heard of gigolos being injured terribly while being hired by Big Dog and his wife Mona for sexual services. However, Sushi insists on accepting the offer. During the process, Sushi and Dick are killed by Big dog and Mona due to rough treatment. Monica and Fung saw the news of Sushi being murdered and decide to take revenge on Big Dog and Mona.

After that, Monica and Fung get married, but during the wedding, Fung is murdered by a few thugs hired by Isabel's husband as he found out that Isabel is having Fung's baby when he himself is sterilised.

 L² Scored: 8/10

L² Comment:

 After one year, The Gigolo is out with the sequel but i think there won't be anymore sequel after this because the main actor has been killed in the end of the movie. I scored this sequel as the same with the first movie as i think it also give us surprise and not only stick to the same storyline like the first movie. This time Dominic didn't show us too much of his body while Connie & Iris are showing us more on their body. Not a bad story, hopefully there's more of this kind of genre movie appeared in Hong Kong soon...

The Mermaid 2016 美人鱼 2016

 Released Year: 2016

Directed by 周星馳 Stephen Chow

Casted by:

鄧超 Deng Chao as 劉軒 Liu Xuan

林允 Lin Yun as 珊珊 Shan Shan

羅志祥 Show Lo as 八哥 Octupus

張雨綺 Kitty Zhang Yu Qi as 李若蘭 Ruolan

Story: 

Playboy business tycoon Liu Xuan purchases the Green Gulf, a wildlife reserve, for a sea reclamation project, and uses sonar technology to get rid of the sea life in the area. Unknown to him, the Green Gulf is the home of merpeople, and the sonar has caused many of them to die or get sick. The few survivors live in an abandoned shipwreck in the gulf, and want to assassinate Xuan for his deeds. The merfolk send Shan, a beautiful mermaid who's trained to walk on her fins and hide among humans, in a "honeytrap" plot against Xuan. On the night of Xuan's party celebrating his success, Shan, pretending to be a dancer, gives her telephone number to Xuan.

Xuan, believing that Shan is a prostitute, calls her number in order to make his business partner jealous. Shan goes to Xuan and tries to kill him but her attempts keep backfiring. In the end, Xuan decides to send Shan back home, and along the way Shan takes him to a funfair that she works at. While there, Shan tries to show Xuan there are more important things than money, and Xuan is impressed with Shan's simple, funny antics. They spend the day together and develop feelings for each other. When Xuan finally takes Shan home, Shan quickly sends Xuan away before her people can kill him. The next day, Xuan takes Shan for another date and proposes, but Shan rejects him.

That night, Xuan goes to Shan's house to talk to her, and discovers the truth that she and her family are merpeople. Against Shan's wishes, the others capture Xuan and tell him how he's killing them with his development project. Xuan is about to be killed when Shan helps him escape. Xuan returns home and, after the shock has worn off, decides to investigate the effects of his project. He turns off the sonar but mistakenly tells his business partner that Shan is a mermaid and where the other merpeople live. The merpeople are attacked, and many of them are killed. Xuan arrives in time to save Shan before she's killed, and sends her back into the ocean so she can escape.

Three years later, a student arrives at Xuan's home to thank him for setting up a scholarship for research into environmental protection. The student asks Xuan whether merpeople are real and the story that he fell in love with a mermaid is true, but Xuan denies it. Xuan then introduces the student to his wife "Lucy", who is actually Shan.

 L² Scored: 8.5/10

L² Comment:

After the movie started to show in the cinema on first day of Chinese New Year 2016 (08/02/2016), the gross profit of this movie has swipe a new record and become the highest gross profit movie of all time in China. The movie is not bad, but just feel something missing, not sure what it is... but something not right... maybe I miss Stephen Chow :(