Matino

Directed: Oxide Pang Chun, Danny Pang
Genre: Action/Adventure/Fantasy
Runtime: 110 Min
Country: Hong Kong
Language: Cantonese
Subtitles: English
Cast: Aaron Kwok, Ekin Cheng, Kenny Ho, Nicholas Tse, Charlene Choi
Imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1186371/

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Synopsis / Plot

Japanese evil warlord Lord Godless desired to conquer China. He imprisoned a large number of martial artists and tried to make them subjugate. Among the prisoners were Cloud and the martial arts elder statesman Nameless. Wind came to the rescue. The trio was badly wounded by Lord Godless’s evil martial arts attack. Chu Chu was also knocked out when she blocked Cloud from Lord Godless’s strike. The remaining martial artists sacrificed their lives to save the trio, in the hope that the trio would beat Lord Godless one day and save the country.

Chu Chu was badly wounded and stayed unconscious. Cloud was filled with remorse and vowed to take revenge. Wind chose to take the evil way to quickly boost up his martial arts skills, so that he could protect the people. During his training, he met the girl who changed his life, Dream. Meanwhile, the troop of Lord Godless came to attack. Wind’s training was interrupted when he tried to save Dream from Lord Godless’s assault. After some killings, Wind ran away and disappeared....

Lord Godless took The Emperor in captivity and stationed his troops in Heaven Cave. Cloud arrived alone and started a combat with Lord Godless. Lord Godless had the upper hand. In the meantime, the half-evil Wind appeared and joined the battle. During the fight, they inadvertently discovered the secret of the sovereign. The real intention of Lord Godless’s invasion was related to an ancient tomb, a forbidden ground buried with the Royal family’s secret. The truth was finally revealed. At last, how would the battle end? Who would eventually rule over the country?




















Review
A tempest of CGI clouds the vision of "Storm Warriors II" but is not enough to smoke screen the action-fantasy's lame plot and appropriation of Hollywood style, especially the grainy texture and buff males of "300" and the production design of the third "Mummy" film. Its December release recorded a moderate take of about $1.8 million in Hong Kong and about $6.6 million in China over a three-week period. Followers of the careers of directors Oxide and Danny Pang ("Bangkok Dangerous") may be tempted to catch this, but there is not enough authentic physical combat to satisfy the typical Asian genre film audience.

"Storm Warriors II" is a sequel to the 1998 Hong Kong mega-hit "Storm Riders," which made memorable screen renditions of the original comic's heroes -- free-spirited but righteous Wind (Ekin Cheng) and cool but competitive Cloud (Aaron Kwok). Each action set piece in the first edition derived its own flavor from being choreographed to mirror the characters' personalities and dramatize their rivalry.

By comparison, the sequel feels bland as it dispenses with the characters' backstories, and abstracts the serpentine plot into a trite battle between good and evil. Even a 2008 animated version delivered a more polished storyline.
 

Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Johnny To
Cast: Johnny Hallyday, Sylvie Testub, Anthony Wong, Lam Ka Tung, Lam Suet, Simon Yam, Cheung Siu Fai, Felix Wong, Michelle Ye, Maggie Siu, Vincent Sze
RunTime: 1 hr 48 mins
Released By: Shaw
Rating: M18 (Violence)
Official Website: http://www.vengeance-lefilm.com/_en/vengeance.html

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With Hong Kong director Johnnie To having long been admired as an auteur by French film critics, his desired collaboration with European talent has been a much mooted and anticipated possibility. Finally, it arrives in the form of “Vengeance”, which sees To teaming with legendary French singer Johnny Hallyday for a thriller written by Milkyway regular Wai Ka Fai. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the film is heavily reminiscent of two of the director’s signature works, namely “The Mission” and “Exiled”, not least since its cast includes the likes of Anthony Wong, Lam Suet, Gordon Lam and Simon Yam, with support from other familiar faces including Michelle Yip, Eddie Cheung, Maggie Shiu, Felix Wong, Berg Ng, and Stanley Fung. Despite underwhelming some critics, the film played in competition at Cannes 2009, with To being nominated for the prestigious Golden Palm Award.
All things considered, the narrative is pretty much standard fare for To and Wai Ka Fai, with Hallyday playing a French Chef called Costello, who heads to Macau after his daughter’s husband and children are assassinated by triad hitmen. A former killer himself, Costello, soon falls in with a trio of mercenaries in Kwai (Anthony Wong), Chu (Gordon Lam), and Lok (Lam Suet), who he hires to help him take revenge – a task made all the more pressing my his own increasing memory problems, caused by a bullet lodged in his brain. Unfortunately for all concerned, the man who ordered the hit turns out to be none other than the boss of Costello’s new friends (Simon Yam), leading to a violent conflict of interests which looks increasingly unlikely to leave anyone left alive.
Although the plot of “Vengeance” is strictly standard, and indeed predictable stuff, few know this kind of material better than To and Wai Ka Fai, and the film certainly benefits from their magic touch, which helps lift it to being somewhat more than the sum of its parts. From the first frame, it’s obvious that comparisons with “The Mission” and “Exiled” are more than well founded, and indeed the film comes across throughout as a spinoff or not too distant cousin. Of course, any complaints of originality aside, this is by no means a bad thing, and the usual themes of brotherhood and revenge are trotted out to good effect.
As is so often the case with Milkway productions, the strength of the film is in its characters, and “Vengeance” is certainly populated with an interesting, idiosyncratic bunch of cool, moody murderers and offbeat oddballs, in particular Yam’s morally ambiguous but gleeful mob boss. This does make the story more engaging than it might otherwise have been, and although the whole value of revenge theme is somewhat undermined by the tacky and obvious device of Costello’s fading memory, the film has a winningly melancholic air and vaguely philosophical underpinning. As a result, whilst a downbeat conclusion is pretty much a given from the start, the film still manages to be moving, thanks in no small part to a great performance from Hallyday in the lead and from Wong, Lam and Suet as his hitmen comrades, who make for a likeable and believable band of brothers.
To’s direction gives the film a very similar look and feel to “Exiled”, featuring plenty of rich colours and a pronounced use of shadows. Graceful slow motion gunplay is very much the order of the day, with most of the fire fights coming complete with misty eruptions of blood filling the air – which although a little stagey are infinitely preferable to the kind of CGI seen in most other productions. Visually, the film includes all of the expected flourishes expected from the director, and although some of these are immediately recognisable from certain other productions, there are a few genuinely delightful moments scattered throughout.

The Brief:
UNIQLO was seeking an innovative way to build its brand awareness internationally,
and promote its business expansion into the global market.
We recognized the 70 million blogs worldwide as a powerful buzz-building media,
and created a functional and entertaining blog widget for the bloggers to spread the brand globally.
The campaign concept we developed was the fusion of a CLOCK which functions as a blog utility,
time signaling MUSIC, and DANCE performance videos with UNIQLO clothing.
We named it UNIQLOCK. As a 100% UNIQLO branded widget, this automatically became a tool
to connect UNIQLO and the world's bloggers.

The Launch And Execution:
As a teaser, we uploaded 16 audition videos onto YOUTUBE.
Then we launched the UNIQLOCK site to start distributing the blog widget.
The numerous dance videos and the clock counter appearing seamlessly one after another makes
the viewers eager to see more.
Since the widget plays all-year round, 24/7, the dancers change their outfits according to the season.
The bloggers were motivated by seeing the website’s world map which visualized the expansion
of all of the users.Screensavers and shop installations were also released to enhance
the UNIQLOCK experience, from personal desktops to the UNIQLO stores.
 
The Results:
Over 99000 widgets from 96 countries
Over 88 million views from 230 countries (the wedgets + the website)
Over 800 thousand views on You Tube (the audition videos)
Over 775 thousand downloads (the screensavers)
0 >> 974 thousand web pages (google)
(To Date: 10th January, 2010)

While in the state of Washington he became one of the "photographers of record" of the then nascent grunge music scene. His personal friendships with Kurt Cobain and other members of the group Nirvana gave him unparalleled access to create a visual record of that iconic group. He also photographed other grunge era bands such as White Zombie, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Sonic Youth and the The Flaming Lips. All these photographs were compiled in a 1996 Simon and Schuster book, Noise From the Underground.
One of Lavine's most known photographs is the cover for the CD Life After Death by The Notorious B.I.G., which was released fifteen days after Biggie's murder. The black and white photograph features Wallace standing alongside a black funeral hearse. In hindsight many saw this as portending his death. In another black and white photograph from the same shoot, Wallace is standing in front of row after row of headstones in a graveyard.
Since 1988, Lavine has been photographing music and entertainment performers, landscapes, politicians and artists, as well as daily American life and everyday people. His style of bold saturated colors, dynamic and extreme use of lighting, and his awareness of what works graphically and what doesn’t, have made him a sought after photographer. He has also received awards from Communication Arts' Photography and Advertising Annual each year since 1992, as well as from American Photography, the Art Director's Club and Photo District News.