Movie reviews finally

Before I discuss some of the movies I watched over the summer which I now barely remember, just a little update on my first week of the job. Well, I should get fired since I forgot to bring my credit card to Shanghai. So when I check out of the JC Mandarin after an eight night stay, I will either have a colleague do the credit card check out for me or grab wads of cash (smallest denomination in China is 100 yuan and 8 yuan = 1 dollar) to pay. LOL.

So, I skipped the entire summer movie season (in the US, anyway) and missed:

• Transformers, Rush Hour 3, Harry Potter, and Halloween (just kidding), among others...
  

Though I did see (in order of its "recommendability"):

• Crazy Rock (瘋狂的石頭) - It's an excellent movie. A Chinese comedy about a heist gone wrong as the professional battles amateurs while the owner of a rare piece of jewel, and the son of the owner have their own ideas, the security chief, and the second in command of the security all have different ideas. It actually almost like a dark comedy making fun of everything that is common in Chinese (mainland, anyway) society. The acting was superb and the way the director cut through certain scenes using an interlinking dialog was refreshing.
  
• Bourne Ultimatum - Jason Bourne kicks ass. And he will certainly kick Jack Bauer's ass too. I'm not sure why Desi thought it would be a competition at all. Anyway, the third installment of the Bourne trilogy was surprisingly good. The camera shaking is a little excessive if you ask me; otherwise, the realism of many scenes (the Waterloo assassination scene was just beatifully filmed, using the entire station - plants, ticket machines, tracks, hallways, ceiling, crowds, etc, nothing spared) took the movie to the audience. And of course watching the good guy kick some serious ass is always fun, although Bourne's utter dominance of the government is sometimes ridiculous. For example, why would you empty your office to hunt for a fugitive when you know he is within 1000 yards of your office? WHY!?
  
• The Simpsons - it was entertaining and funny. I prefer to see it on TV though.
• Tokyo Drift - in my defense, I saw this on the plane because the next movie I'm going to discuss was so bad that I only endured 10 minutes of it. Tokyo Drift fared a bit better as I lasted 30 minutes. It's funny to watch some Japanese guy teach an American guy how to drift as the American learns a lesson in life - Karate Kid, anyone?
  
• Some HK movie about a girl in police academy - this was so freaking dumb that I don't even know the English name of the movie. I was ready to kill the passenger next to me just because the movie was so bad. The actress was extremely annoying with her voice - for some reason, speaking in a childish way has caught on with Hong Kong girls. Don't ask.

Wow, I miss doing movie reviews. And food reviews. I can't even list the amount of good food I've had since returning to Hong Kong... there's just so much of it. Yesterday I had real Sichuan (四川) food in Shanghai (the Japanese from the day before, not so good). My god it was spicy. Other food favorites I've had are soup dumplings (小籠包), soy milk (豆奶), rice cake with abalone (鮑魚炒年糕), red bean paste (紅豆沙), congee (粥) at my favorite restaurant in HK (for sentimental reasons, anyway), etc etc. Yay!