Thursday, December 31, 2015

Dinesh Kamath’s column ‘New movies released in Navi Mumbai’ (Monster Hunt and Point Break) that were published in Newsband


New movies released in Navi Mumbai
By Dinesh Kamath
Monster Hunt

Monster Hunt is a 2015 Chinese-Hong Kong 3D fantasy adventure film directed by Raman Hui and starring Bai Baihe and Jing Boran.
The main theme in Monster Hunt, according to Hui is acceptance (similar to the Shrek series which Hui was involved in). The message in the film is to understand and accept differences, to see the world through others' perspective and to foster more understanding between people and groups.
The movie is about a cute baby monster Wuba who is the child of a human man and a monster queen, threatened by both monster-hating humans and monsters attempting to captue the new-born in an ancient world based on medieval China. When a monster queen gives birth to a cute prince, the child faces an immediate threat from other fantastic creatures and the humans who hunt them.
In a mythic kingdom, mortals and monsters who once fought each other now stay put in their separate domains. Their uneasy truce is disrupted when a coup in the monster land forces its pregnant queen to go on the run with her two loyal but inept retainers, Zhugao and his rotund wife, Fat Ying. Foreseeing that pandemonium will spill over to the humans’ realm, monster-hunt bureau chief Ge (Wallace Chung) puts up a handsome bounty for the unborn heir.
Evading the pursuit of a ferocious rebel general (a cuddly variation of a T-rex) and long-out-of-work monster hunters, Zhugao and Fat Ying take refuge in Yongning Village, disguising themselves as humans (played by Eric Tsang and Sandra Ng, respectively). Unexpectedly, the famished Monster Queen develops a craving for village sentinel Tianyin (Jing Boran), even though he looks nothing like a gastronomic delight. Although his dotty grandma (Elaine Jin) keeps reminding him he’s descended from an illustrious line of monster hunters, Tianyin is a dork whose only ambition is to cook and sew, and he proves utterly defenseless.
To the monsters’ chagrin, snack time is interrupted by Xiaolan (Bai Baihe), a low-ranking monster hunter who’s after the bounty, but she is in turn trounced by veteran Luo Gang (Jiang Wu, brother of helmer-actor Jiang Wen). In the ensuing chase, Tianyin becomes an accidental carrier of the monster fetus, his “pregnancy” giving rise to off-the-wall gender-bending gags. The yarn picks up with the “virgin birth” of the monster prince, whose baby-babble spurs his surrogate dad to name him “Wuba.” Resembling a squishy radish crossed with a cuttlefish, Wuba will charm any tot infatuated with bouncy rubber balls, while a certain oral trick of his may even tickle adults.
Alas, money-grubbing Xiaolan is impervious to Wuba’s charms and sells him to a pawn-shop owner (Tang Wei, making almost no impression), who instantly turns him in at a five-star eatery called Heaven Restaurant. In a kitchen scene sizzling with Rabelaisian revelry, monsters dexterously dodge a siege of woks, steamers and sashimi knives; Yao Chen, playing a master chef, comedienne and “Weibo queen,” demonstrates the sophistication and barbarity of Chinese cuisine with a balletic act as high-spirited as it is spine-chilling. The climactic banquet builds to a cracking showdown that not only unleashes the protags’ inner reserves, but offers the comforting notion that neither monsters nor humans are as fiendish as they seem to be. The ending sprinkles in plenty of hints for a sequel — highly foreseeable, given the pic’s phenomenal success.

Point Break

Point Break is a 2015 3D action thriller film directed by Ericson Core and written by Kurt Wimmer. An American-Chinese co-production, the film is a remake of the 1991 film of the same name, which starred Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves. The film stars Édgar Ramírez, Luke Bracey, Teresa Palmer, and Ray Winstone.
Extreme poly-athlete Johnny Utah and his friend Jeff attempts a stunt traversing a steep ridge peak line, ending it by leaping onto a lone stone column. Jeff over speeds his bike and falls. Seven years later Utah is a FBI Agent candidate. He attends a briefing about a skyscraper heist where the criminals parachute down their escape. Another heist happens where the criminals unload Dollar bills mid-air over Mexico then simply disappear. Utahs research concludes that they were done by the same men, who at the same time attempt to complete the Ozaki 8; a teaching of doing eight extreme ordeals to honor the forces of nature. They already cleared three, and Utah predicts theyll attempt the fourth on a rare sea wave phenomenon in France. After presenting his analysis, Utah gets sent undercover to France under a field agent Pappas. They reach the place and Utah gets help from others to surf the tall tube wave.
But as he goes in theres already another surfer in the wave, leaving Utah with unstable wave. Utah gets sucked into the wave and faints but the other surfer bails and rescues Utah. He wakes aboard a yacht with the other surfer Bodhi and his team Roach, Chowder, and Grommet. They leave him to enjoy the party and he gets acquainted with a girl Samsara. The next day Utah finds the men in an abandoned Paris train station after he overhears them about the location. Bodhi gives him an initiation fight and soon hes in the circle. They travel to the Alps for the next ordeal, wingsuit flying through the cliffs. The four succeed in their attempt then have some time together with Samsara. The next day they climb the snow peaks for the sixth ordeal, snowboarding through steep wall of snow. They reach their spot but Utah decides to extend his line so the others follow him. But Chowder slips and falls to his death. Utah gets depressed about it. After a party Samsara explains about her and Bodhi.

Next they travel to a gold mine where Bodhi detonates some explosives Grommet and Roach planted. After blowing his cover, Utah chases Bodhi, managing to trip his bike. But Bodhi escapes as Utah cant stand up after the crash. The FBI freezes Bodhis sponsors assets so Bodhi plans to rob a nearby Italian bank on a mountain top. Utah and the police intercept the group, resulting in a crossfire that kills Roach. As the group flees, Utah chases and shoots one of them but it turns out to be Samsara. Utah finds the next ordeal location, solo rock climbing with no safety besides a waterfall. he finds Bodhi and Grommet and chases them on the climb, but Grommet cramps and falters, falling to his death. Utah catches up to Bodhi but he leaps down the waterfall, completing the last ordeal. But Bodhi has to redo the fourth ordeal as he bailed out on the wave. 17 months later Utah finds him in the Pacific facing another giant wave. But ultimately Utah lets Bodhi go and attempt it. The wave engulfs Bodhi and Utah comes back home.

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