Wolverine: Enemy of the State (comic book)

I think the first comic book story I didn't like was Wolverine: Enemy of the State. It was bad and boring and they dragged it out with so much padding like it is never going to end.

My problem is that a TV series writer (Mark Millar) wrote it and it was written like a Tv series. Well a comic book is not a TV show. Obviously. You cannot write a comic book like a TV show because with a TV show you get an episode every week. A comic book issue only gets published monthty at best or in every second month.

Each issue of Wolverine: Enemy of the State was like a bad anime episode what has got a lot of fillers and nothing interesting happens. Well with comics you have to deal with page count, efficiency, and time compression. Which means comics should be short and sweet. Each issue has to be meaningful to the reader otherwise it isn't worth to pick up and read a comic book.

Yeah I like fight scenes too but if the story sucks there is no point. So in Wolverine: Enemy of the State the writing was bad. I also got bored with John Romita Jr's drawings. In the early 2000s they became so repetative like everything looked the same. He drew similar faces. There were only three types: a guy face, a woman face and a fat guy face.

I also realised why I hate Man of Steel and Batman V Superman because they just go on and on and on without a good story or characters in a so boring way just like Wolverine: Enemy of the State.

I like good fight scenes too as everybody else. I am a Jackie Chan movie fanatic. But you cannot have just a bunch of characters fighting with Wolverine all the time. There is no meaning behind it. You have to have soimething else too.

Wolverine: Enemy of the State lost me when Wolverine became a bad guy. A puppet. They just went for shock value to shake up stuff but it didn't end up exciting.

John Romita Jr didn't even make the fights interesting. The only good stuff was when Captain America knocked Wolverine out. I still liked John Romita Jr's style in Peter Parker Spider-Man and my all time favourite was how he drew X-Men and Spider-Man comics in the 80s.

Probably he got tired ond burned out in the early 2000s like everybody else would when you have to draw for som many comics. However I think Wolverine: Enemy of the State became really old and really fast.

Jackie Chan Marathon: A Legend (2024)

This AI generated young Jackie Chan in A Legend (2024) looks bad or what? I get it that they wanted to de-age Jackie like the way he looked in the 70s (1976-1978). The eyes, eyebrows and mouth looks okay I guess, but the nose and the jaw line is messed up.


It looks weird and washed up. Some fine details are missing. Just look up a scene fron Drunken Master 1 and say if I am wrong. 

It's some kind of uncanny valley. I still cannot see any future in AI generated movie scenes. The audience can tell there is something off.

By the way... Did you realize that Jackie Chan turned 70 this year?

If Jackie Chan wants to make movies where half of the movie is AI generated, just fucking retire, man.

He should have retired after The Foreigner to end with a high note. Or he should make dramas, thrillers with just a little bit of action.

With The Foreigner and Crime Story he proved he can do that. He proved can act. But he shouldn't do lame action scenes with bad CGI. The audienc can tell what is real and what isn't when the CGI is bad.

Jackie Chan can make movies with as less action as possible. In Shinjuku Incident he made a gangster film and his character couldn't even fight but it was a good movie. Anything but bad CGI effects. I don't watch Jackie Chan films for the CGI effects.

I am so tired of movies like Bleeding Steel, Vanguard, Kung Fu Yoga and Hidden Strike. Jackie Chan can do better movies that that and he proved that with The Foreigner.

A Legend (2024) is just a weird tech demo experiment that gone wrong and looks barely convincing. You can tell there are CGI effects and AI generated imagery. It looks as artificial as a video game cut scene from a video game. The de-aged AI generated Jackie Chan has as much life as a chopped down wood or a dead parrot.

And nobody thought this face looks wrong. It has to be a heroic scene but it is just laughable. I cannot take this seriously. AI generated movie scenes look artificial and fake. It is easy to spot that it is fake. 

You know what? They should have got Jackie Chan's son, Jaycee Chan to play the young Jackie Chan's character because he looks almost exactly as him in his 30s. But I bet they didn't want to hire him for the film because he was busted possessing weed some years ago.


I've never thought there will be a Jackie Chan movie where I have to say I wasted about 90 minutes of my time. I wrote 90 minutes, because at least the last 25 minutes is a decent entertaining Jackie Chan movie. If they managed to make the whole film like that I wouldn't complain about it at all. Then that would be as good as Chinese Zodiac or even better.
 
Recently Jackie Chan's films reached such a low point. They are getting as bad as when Jackie Chan made movies for Lo Wei in the 1970s (from 1976 to 1978). I've never thought we will ever get back to such a low point of this kind.
 
Honestly the only one I really liked from his recent movies is The Foreigner. It had good acting, an exciting story and a little bit of action which was choreographed so well. Can't he just make films like that?



How to behave at the cinema?

I think the same rules sound be applied at the cinema as in theatres. Primarily, the emphasis would not be on appearing in a nice dress or something. Not to ruining the entertainment of others would be enough for me. if that could be achieved I would be happy.

Nowadays, it’s like a cinema has no policies at all and everyone can behave the way they want. The whole thing can be viewed on websites and the rules are even displayed on the wass next to the cashier. However it would be a pretty naive thing to assume that anyone is reading this. That's a shame.

Believe it or not oters would like to enjoy the movie the sme wa as you do. I have put together a policy that you can follow in order to surely become a useful and respected member of the society.
1. Be quiet!
I remember there were plenty of undisciplined kids on Harry Potter 1 at the time. They were so loud that I could barely hear anything from what the characters said. And nothing has changed since then. When John Wick was screened, I could barely concentrate on the film because they almost always chatted when there wasn’t an action scene. It wasn't that long, though. Just about 30 minutes, almost the third of its runtime. I don’t understand that someone can’t sit still, quietly, patiently for 101 minutes once they’ve paid the ticket price.

If you definitely have something to say and are unable to keep it to yourself, you can even whisper. As surprising as it may sound, it’s not just you sitting alone in the auditorium. If you talk out loud during the movie, you will disturb other people. Especially those people who are sitting in front of you. Isn't it worth discussing everything after the movie? Or if you don't care, why the hell did you leave home and pay for that in the first place?

It’s just one thing that people can’t be quiet during the previews or trailers because a few of them are still on their way to get to their seats, but during the film there should be silence. You wouldn't chat during a theatrical performance either, would you?.

2. Tell your friend to shut up too!

3. Don’t any noise with a popcorn bag or withother stuff!
You can take corn out of that damn bag without digging in it for hours. It can be confusing az hell. Fumbling with a straw and wheezing are just a separate addition. And if that wasn’t enough, it can make a very nice sound if it takes someone hours to unwrap some rattling paper candy. It’s vital to suck something like that because of oral fixation during a movie.

4. Don’t put your feet on the chair in front of you!
Why?
1. Because it isn't nice. It's not the proper thing to do. It's a very bad habit. No one in the theater does the same.
2. Because you are not at home.
3. Because it bothers others sitting behind you while watching a movie.
+1 Kicking the chair is forbidden too because you are not the only person there in the auditorium..

5. Turn off your phone before the movie starts!
Don't push your mobile while watching a movie! Do you have any idea how annoying it is for the person sitting in front of you to have their display lit up? It can be very frustrating to watch from the middle row as the auditorium in front of me glows like a Christmas tree.

It's already distracting when the display glows in the same row as mine. If you've already bought that expensive movie ticket, do me and others a favor to make it last until the end of the movie without touching that thing! Otherwise, I will register you to a withdrawal cure. By the way, the use of video and audio recording devices (Well, cell phones are like that!) Is also prohibited by the cinema policy.

6. Don't go in and out constantly slamming the door each time!
The auditorioum is not a getaway house to go back and forth to the toilet or any other playes. You paid for the ticket so stay put on your seat then. hearing Slamming the door is very annoying and distracting at the same time. I rarely watch a movie for the second time at the cinema but I wanted to watch Avengers Endgame again. Well the experiance was ruined by a guy and his girlfrined who were leaving and entering the audiorium constantly. I wanted to tear his Marvel shirt off that guy so bad. So I had to had to watch it for the third time too because I didn't want that to be the last experience of that movie before its Bluray release.

Next time, please note that someone else has paid for the movie ticket too who is sitting in the hall with you. If you disturb others, it can really spoil a movie experience. I’m sure you don’t want to keep listening to paper rattles, nesting, and conversation for two hours either. Let’s take care of others and don’t spoil the fun for them!

Jackie Chan Maraton: Tűzsárkány (Fire Dragon, 1983)


Figyelem!

A Tűzsárkány című tajvani produkció a benne rejlő hülyeség hatására súlyosan károsítja az agysejteket, ezért óva intek mindenkit a megtekintésétől. Kérem, a folytatáshoz távolítson el a szobából mindenféle szúró-, vágó-, és lőfegyvert. Köszönjük és jó szórakozást kívánunk!
u.i.: Ja, és Jackie Chan-t nyomokban tartalmazhat.

Ma a Tűzsárkány című filmet szeretném a földbe döngölni, és a sárba taposni. Micsoda? Még soha sem hallottál erről a filmről? Addig jó neked. Készülhetsz a legrosszabbra. A címéből ítélve valami nagyon király dolgot vártam volna, de hatalmas csalódás volt. Régebben a tévében minden filmet megnéztem, amiben Jackie Chan akár csak pár pillanatra is feltűnt. Elég gyorsan leesett, hogy jó lett volna néha szelektálni a műsorkínálatból. 

Szebbnél szebb borítók léteznek a filmhez. A Rettenthetetlen hiénából ollózták össze a borító képét.  Még a lemezre is ebből a filmből választottak képet. Ha ez nem félrevezető marketingfogás, akkor mi?

A Tűzsárkány című jelenlegi agyalágyultság 1983-ban készült. Az IMDB-n sajnos (Értsd: hál Istennek) nincs fent. Ez a leghülyébb, legrosszabb hongkongi vagy tajvani akció(vígjáték), amit valaha láttam.

Körülbelül 18 évvel ezelőtt láttam először a Viasat 3-on. Azóta megnéztem még párszor, mert nem hittem sem a szememnek, sem a fülemnek, hogy ilyen hülyeséget össze lehet hozni. Ezt az életemből elvesztegetett időt sosem kapom már vissza. Még mindig kiráz a hideg, ha csak rá gondolok.

Ha a film önmagában még nem lenne elég rossz, az már csak az olaj a tűzre, ahogyan kinéz. Nem gondoltam volna, hogy vannak, akik képesek ennyire vacak kép és hangminőséget produkálni. A pan & scan megoldással 4:3-as csonkított képarány miatt nem látni a kép szélén álló embereket. (A pan & scan a következőképpen történik: végy egy szélesvásznú filmet, nagyítsd ki úgy, hogy a fekete csíkok eltűnjenek, és a kép teljesen kitöltse a képernyőt. Ez akkor igazán idegesítő, ha a szereplő beszélni kezd, csak féléig, vagy egyáltalán nem látszódik. Ez az akciójelenetek alatt még frusztrálóbb élménnyé válik. A kép olyan életlen, mint egy agyon használt, többszörösen újramásolt VHS kazettán. Nem is lehetne ennél homályosabb. Csoda, hogy látni valamit az emberek mozgásából.

A hangminőség egyszerűen csapnivaló, eléggé tompa, helyenként a zenék alatt torz. Súlyosbítja a dolgokat, hogy ehhez produkcióhoz méltóan pocsék magyar szinkron készült. Az angol hang ennél még egy fokkal rosszabb, mert a furcsa akcentus és a rossz hangkeverés miatt alig lehet érteni. A zene és a zörejek elnyomják a beszédhangot, túlharsogják a párbeszédek hangerejét.

Így ment le a Tűzsárkány film a tévében, és ilyen minőségben adták ki DVD-n is, ami elég szadista dolog a kiadó részéről. Viszont méltó módon papírtokos dvd-re száműzték, hogy a turkáló részlegben kísértsen tovább az idők végezetéig.

Csak utólag jöttem rá, hogy a Tűzsárkány csupán a Fantasztikus küldetés újravágott és módosított változata, mert az eredetit csak évekkel később láttam a tévébe. A Tűzsárkány című alkotást több különböző filmből fércelték össze, ezért a végeredmény és a megtekintés élménye valóságos pokoljárássá válik.

Godfrey Ho rémálmaiban sem tudna hasonlót létrehozni, pedig ő aztán nagyon ért a Ctr+C-Ctrl+V technikához. Egy rakás nindzsa filmet készített már így.

A recept lényegében itt is ugyanaz: végy egy celluloidra forgatott akármilyen alkotást és fűszerezd saját felvételekkel, melyek szerinted bele is passzolnak/illenek az egészbe. Végül tálald új címmel saját ízlésed szerint.

Szóval a Tűzsárkány jeleneteket tartalmaz a Fantasztikus küldetés (Fantasy Mission Force) című filmből. A lényeges különbség, hogy Jimmy Wang Yu jeleneteit teljes egészében kukázták. Jackie Chan pedig már csak két jelenet erejéig szerepel benne. A többi részt egyszerűen kivágták. A hézagok betöméséhez leforgattak némi tölteléket. Az új jeleneteket Chester Wong rendezte. Végül pedig eladták Jackie Chan filmnek, mert ez a fércmunka a Kung fu kölyök (Master with cracked fingers) esetében is aaaannyira bejött. Olyan jól át lehetett verni a kedves nézőket. Hiszen a dublőröket senki sem szúrja ki, ugye?

A Tűzsárkányban meghagyták a Fantasztikus küldetés jeleneteinek 75%-át, amely Lilly csapatáról szól. A hősnőt ismét Brigette Lin (Rendőrsztori) alakítja. A sztorin mindössze annyit változtattak, hogy a főhősöknek ezúttal nem túszul ejtett tábornokokat kell kiszabadítaniuk, hanem a nácik pénzét akarják megszerezni. Ja, és a nácik itt valamilyen okból kifolyólag kínaiak. A kínai náci párt ötlete több szempontból is lehetetlenül hangzik. Hogy miért, azt felesleges is lenne részletezni.

A meghagyott részekhez új „cselekményszálat” forgattak új főhősökkel. Íme az egyikük. Történetesen John névre hallgat. Nem volt valami jó biznisz Wang Yu-t és Chan-t lecserélni, hiszen John annyira karizmatikus és temperamentumos, mint egy szimpla fakaró. Fel sem tűnne a különbség, ha az helyettesítené őt egész végig.

Szóval a fickónak meg kell találna Lilly-t, mielőtt a rosszfiúk találják meg. Így hát mindenki üldöz mindenkit. John útközben nindzsákkal szövetkezik. A vezetőjük már ismeri John-t valahonnan. Már eleve barátok voltak korábban is, de azért a vezető emberei csak megtámadják Johnt, mert már régóta nem volt akciójelenet. 

A film egyetlen színfoltja, hogy egy kis időre feltűnik Jackie Chan. Bár kötve hiszem, hogy  kapott egyáltalán valami pénzt azért, hogy felhasználták a jeleneteit. Valószínűleg nem is tud arról, hogy ebben a filmben egyáltalán szerepel. Mindössze két bunyós jelenetét hagyták meg. Pár helyen pedig dublőr helyettesíti meglehetősen röhejes módon, de mégis főszereplőként van feltüntetve.

Ez még butább és őrültebb film, mint a Fantasztikus küldetés, amiből ezt a szemetet összevagdosták. Sem a valóság, sem a józan ész nem szabott határt a készítők fantáziájának. Sajnos. Általában a legjobb részeket a Fantasztikus küldetésből vágták ki, és amiket hozzá forgattak, zavaros, unalmas, hihetetlenül gagyi baromsággá teszik az összképet. A Fantasztikus küldetést még csak-csak összetartotta valami, de a Tűzsárkány hozzáadott jeleneteiben található párbeszédek hihetetlenül szaggatottak, és döcögősek. Ide még a Palmatex is kevés lenne. (Ez itt a reklám helye.) Olyan, mintha beszédközben megállnának kávészünetet tartani. Gyakran bukkannak fel emberek a semmiből, és a jelenetek sem valami logikus sorrendben következnek.

A sokkhatásból már csak akkor eszmél fel a néző, amikor meglátja a rövid végefőcímet, de akkorra már túl késő, mert tudja, hogy 84-85-75 percet elpazarolt az életéből.

Annyira vacak ez a film, hogy még a fanatikus hongkongi filmrajongóknak sem merem ajánlani, mert egyszerűen nem üti meg a mércét, hogy koherens egészként működjön.

A B-kategóriás akciófilm csak egy dolog, de azért mégis van egy szint, amit meg kell ugrani ahhoz, hogy elviselhető legyen az élmény. Ha a Tango és Cash a B-kategóriába illik, akkor a Tűzsárkány a Zs-kategóriát súrolja alulról. Végül is nagyon vigyázni kell, hogy az igencsak olcsó DVD-k közül mit választ az ember magának otthoni megtekintésre.


Jackie Chan Marathon: Dragon Blade (2015)


Director: Daniel Lee
Writer: Daniel Lee
Stars: Jackie Chan, John Cusack, Adrien Brody, Lin Peng, and Amanda Wang

Chinese actiaon-adventure and filmdrama,
127 minutes, 2015











Dragon Blade is a Chinese adventure film which takes place in the ancient times where every nation or race speaks in their own language except for the Romans. They learnt English for the sake of the movie.

We are in the first period of the Han Dynasty (48 BC). Jackie Chan's character is a commander who has a Hun heritage. He leads a special division of soldiers and helps the Chinese to protect and maintain the peace od the Silk Road between the all kinds of races living around the area. Due to a conspiracy he and his squad is wrongly stentenced on penal servitude. During their time they meet a Roman legion. They form an alliance which complicates the events even further. John Cusack and Adrien Brody play Roman generals in the film.

There were some quite entertaining moments like when the Chinese and Roman armies join forces to rebuild a wall around a huge building. The theme and imagery of the movie remembered me of Gladiator in places.

It was so nice to see John Cusack and Jackie Chan together in the same movie because I like both actors. However I just cannot say the same in case of Adrien Brody. It was written on his face that he didn't want to be in this movie at all. Even a wooden rod could have played the role of a mad Roman general much better than that. It would have been a much more believable performance.

In Dragon Blade I was interested in the drama and the fights too. Jackie had more action scenes than in Police Story 2013 Lockdown. This time the editing and the choreography of the fight scenes were much better. In Police Story 2013 Lockdown these ended up too fragmented.

However I  didn't understand why were they trying to present it like a true story. We get a subtitle in the beginning which says "based on a true story". It felt like a fantasy sprinkled with just a few historical facts or real life events. It could have worked much better as a fantasy. This movie is based on true events just as much as 300. Dragon Blade is interesting to watch because of the performances and the action scenes even though it has got a naive story.

Dragon Blade was shown in the cinemas from the 18th February 2015, at the summer in that year it had its DVD release. The movie had its American premiere on 4th September.


Jackie Chan Marathon: Railroad Tigers (2016)

 
Director:
Sheng Ding

Writers:
Sheng Ding   
Alex Jia
He Keke

Cast:
Jackie Chan
Jaycee Chan
Zitao Huang







I delayed for so long to watch this movie. It has been collecting dust on my shelf since it came out on Bluray, but I just couldn't force myself to watch it after movies like Chinese Zodiac and Skitrace. However Railroad Tigers (2016) didn't get promising reviews either. It was like delaying the inevitable.

The writer and director was Sheng Ding. This is his third collaboration with Jackie Chan (Little Big Soldier, Police Story 2013). After Police Story 2013 I expected something better. Railroad Tigers turned out like the dear director forgot how to put decent action, drama and dialogues on the big screen.
Our story begins in 1941. Ma Yuan (Jackie Chan) leads a team of brave freedom fighters. These people would do everything to sabotage the job of Japanese soldiers who occupy Chinese territories. Ma Yuan's men attack trains in order to get some food for the poor like a Chinese Robin Hood. One day they plan to blow a bridge up in oder to help the rebels to bring their mission to success.
This is good and all but there is the rub. In spite of the movie has a quite simple plot the whole movie is so unnecesarily overcomplicated that sometimes it is very hard to follow what is going on. I already lost the train of thought when a bunch of characters were introduced with still images like a Guy Ritchie film, and I forgot their names in a split second.

Railroad Tigers has got far too many characters to work with. I just didn't have the chance to learn their names. It is not so easy to follow who are they and what are they doing. Half as many protagonists should have been more than enough and the movie could have been more coherent. The protagonists were likeable but they weren't presented and developed well enough. There were far too many of them. I had this feeling that the writer-director (Shang Ding) just forced them on the audience like "Here they are, you can root for them but don't expect them to be three-dimensional."

We hardy ever know anything about them. I cannot even tell a single sentence about most of the protagonists appearing in the movie. These characters' personalities aren't developed properly to differentiate them from each other. The introduction of these characters could have worked better with the method that was used in Kelly's Heroes. In that movie we get to know our heroes through their memorable actions and brilliantly written dialogues.
In Railroad Tigers the Japanese soldiers are the enemies.They act like buffoons from a cartoon. You cannot take them seriously at all. They aren't funny either. In this movie 99% of the jokes are so forced that just don't work at all. However I laughed so hard when our heroes stole explosives and when they fought a tank battle on the train on the move. It is so sad that I cannot highlight more entertaining parts like these from this chaos.

The movie is often tone-deaf and it just takes away from its edge. It has a constantly shifting mood and it just isn't balanced ourt properly between comedy and drama. Some scenes could have worked better without fooling around in a buffoonic way. So the creators tried to portray our protagonsts' heroism with pathos which is forced on the audience and this just doesn't work in this manner.

Within the confines of the action genre even Jackie Chan's previous movies could be very serious according to the situation because the protagonists got into a tight corner. This worked before in spite of the comedy components. Maybe City Hunter was sometimes too much when they tried the carnage to make it look like funny. This didn't always work. However I only had problems with the mood in a few scenes in that movie. It still stayed enjoyable. I cannot say the same about Railroad Tigers because I had this feeling all along that even the dear writer-director didn't know he wanted to make a serious and epic war-drama or a cheesy and unfunny action-comedy. So they put both elements into the same movie without balancing everything out. It just didn't work at all.
The creators surely wanted to make a war film similar to The Dirty Dozen, Kelly's Heroes, Inglourious Basterds or The Corporal and Others. At least it seems like it was their intention. In spite of this Shang Ding couldn't copy the parts that made those movies so great and successful. Those movies had funny scenes too, but those could be very serious when a scene required that. To put it midly in the case of Railroad Tigers this didn't work all the time. The music didn't always fit for some scenes either to achive the intended mood. However this is just the tip of the iceberg.

I just don't get why does the Chinese movie industry have to force the crappy Hollywood blockbuster style down the throat of the audience with only half of the budget of an American film. They want to copy Hollywood with doing everything cheaper. Railroad Tigers has got everything what is bad about the kind of incompetently made dumb big budget American movies. The story isn't developed well and the characters are one dimensional at best. What makes it worse is unnecessarily overcomplicated plot which bears all the flaws of the 70s Hong Kong movies. Especially the really bad ones directed by Lo Wei (Magnificent Bodyguards, Killer Meteors, To Kill with Intrigue). I never expected that something will remind me those attrocities even after the year 2000 but there you go.

In Railroad Tigers there are problems with the editing too. Thanks to the fast edits and far too many characters the action scenes weren't always easy to follow. The well thought out elaborated choreography was missing. Except for a few parts the fights looked rushed, ungraceful and clumsy. I rarely found a decently directed action scene At the end somewhere around the last 30 minutes the film somehow managed to pull itself together. However by that time I just stopped caring because of the one hour long padding in which nothing interesting happened.
It would have been better if they had made it in the 90s. We could have seen more practical effects and real stunts instead of CGI animated sequences. The train scenes in Drunken Master 2, Police Story 3 and Sanghai Noon were much better than the whole Railroad Tigers movie. Thanks to the cheap CGI effects we didn't even get the illusion that the protagonists were in real danger.

However in some cases the animation could fool me and only the making of made me realize that so much stuff was trick photography. They tried to combine computer effects with real built models but the vehicles didn't always move in a realistic way. It looked strange when one of those wehicles was turned over.  

They put so much work into Railroad Tigers and it still sucked. It despearately needed a better script, better characters and better fight scenes. It was as tone-deaf as the Transformers movies.

I appreciate the creators' effort but I am not sure I want to watch Railroad Tigers again anytime soon.  I couldn't even recommend it to another determined and hardcore Jackie Chan fan like me.