Almost Buddhist - 戲‧論

★★☆☆☆ ‘The Magnificent Seven’, a remake of 1954’s Japanese ‘Seven Samurai’ by the iconic Akira Kurosawa, is basically a story of revenge with no heartfelt emotions at all! Sam (Danzel Washington) the bounty hunter is begged to avenge a woman’s husband’s death, and her townies’. Sam agrees! His reason for doing it is strong as revealed in the end. But he can’t do it alone because the wicked man he’s gonna take on is really wicked, so he recruits the other six to help. Though it says seven, it only centers on three, Sam himself, Faraday (Chris Pratt) and Goodnight (Ethan Hawke) because y’know they’re kinda big! The rest of four are just like cardboard figures that can be completely ignored. And the reason why they join up and fight is like child’s play! Put aside the straightforward carefree story, the shootouts are nothing exciting. Yet the funniest part is where some of these guys have to contribute heroic sacrifices as the highlight of the show. How unnecessary for a film tha

★★★★★ Unlike Clint Eastwood busy directing films even at an old age, Mel Gibson takes his time, but he never seems to lose his touch when it comes to being a director. You wouldn’t disagree at all if you’ve seen his award-winning epic works like ‘Braveheart’, ‘ The Passion of the Christ ’. Now 10 years later after ‘Apocalypto’, he took the director’s chair again, and pulled off another true-story-based motivational war film, probably the most ingenious one ever since ‘Saving Private Ryan’! ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ is a true story about Andrew Garfield’s Desmond Doss, an American combat medic who saved a great deal of lives during the battle of Okinawa without firing a single bullet. What happens in the film is heroic and encouraging though how it really happened back there may not be presumably so. No matter what, it’s indeed a miracle single-handedly done by a man who has strong faith that he doesn’t have to kill to save lives even in wartime. For such faith, he’s challenged, question

★★★☆☆ I like Clint Eastwood as a director more than an actor in fact. At an old age like he is now, he’s still diligent at exploring different kinds of stories and turning them into films that may not be so great to be remembered but absolutely good enough to move and stimulate us at certain moments, like his ‘Million Dollar Baby’, ‘ Gran Torino ’, ‘ Hereafter ’, and now ‘Sully’. ‘Sully’ tells a true story back in January 2009 where Captain Sully was forced to land his plane on New York’s Hudson River as birds broke down both of the engines shortly after the takeoff. It’s an accident happening in a flash that only lasts 208 seconds, but Clint Eastwood manages to make it a film of 90 minutes without a moment of boredom thanks to the terrific editing work, certain details of the hearing, and of course Tom Hanks’ convincing performance, despite the fact that you may not find it so engrossing since you already know how it would end. This is not a film to glorify one single hero li