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霸王别姬
(Farewell My Concubine)

The ugliest scene is the best part of this 157-minute epic

5.0

Das Boot:
The Director’s Cut

The best movie ever made on submarine, if not the best one on war.

4.9

L’Homme Du Train

(The Man on the Train)

A cold-blooded criminal constantly on move and a wordy emeritus professor tired of boring life in a small town encountered on the eve of bank robbery. Both wish to change to the other party’s identity, but life is doomed for everyone.

4.8

切腹
（Harakiri）

Two Japanese ronins, father and son-in-law, visited the same vizir in half a year separately, both threatening to practice hara-kiri, or samurai suicide, in his court. What did they want and what happened?
An excellent history movie on ronins

4.8

2046

A very exquisite production? It doesn’t say a word about how he loves the lady in “In Mood of Love” but the whole movie was dedicated on this simple motif.

4.7

L.A. Confidential

A masterpiece forgotten by most

4.6

饮食男女
（Eat Drink Man Woman）

What a pleasant opening, amusing climax and touching ending!

4.5

壬生义士传
(When the Last Sword was Drawn)

In this 2003 movie actor Kiichi Nakai gave the audience an incredibly excellent performance of the last generation samurai Yoshimura Kanichiro, a money-grubbing, penny-pinching rube but meanwhile a skillful and brave warrior who contributed his steadfast loyalty to the moribund Tokugawa Shogun in order to support his family struggling for food in the remote rural area of north Japan. Bushido probably won’t make any sense to us, but this movie tells that it does make sense to Japanese once upon a time.

4.4

Cold Mountain

A beautiful but little bit tedious movie narrowly saved by Renee Zellwege

4.3

The Terminal

The best comedy of 2004

4.2

可可西里

(Kekexili)

This is an excellent documentary-style movie on the protection of wild Tibetan antelopes

4.1

天国与地狱

（High and Low）

An excellent drama on kidnapping.  It’s a pity that this movie explained too briefly the incentive of the crazy criminal. Otherwise it could have become a great movie.

4.1

影武者

The defeat of Takeda cavalry was oversimplified.

4.0

One Hour Photo

An intriguing small production

4.0

卡拉是条狗
(Cala, My Dog)

A very grass-root story

3.9

20:30:40

A very pleasant movie about women of various ages. It could have been better if there is more interaction between the three separate stories.

3.9

椿三十郎

(Sanjuro)

Three roles that left me with deep impression: The old lady who concentrated on the beauty of camellia when samurais were waiting for fight; the captive who always stepped back to his cell after he expressed his opinion; and of course the ronin samurai, full of wisdom.

3.8

The Insider

This is a type of films that have been produced too many. Being stale is its flaw.

3.7

The Passion of the Christ

The movie is ranked high because it could solicit thoughts:
The regrettable human nature that people always abuse their power to suppress different faith has never changed. What did change, to our comfort, is that people nowadays suppress pagan in a less brutal way, but not much less;
The Jewish police must have been poorly trained, who were low in both efficiency and morale. With armor and weapon they were injured by bare fisted detainees. This was probably due to the status of their colonized nation;
Democracy based on uneducated mass could be easily maneuvered by their populist leaders;
It is very likely that early Christianity preachers made up the story that Roman governor refused to execute Jesus Christ, so as to facilitate their missionary work to Roman Empire.
As in any ancient civilization, the city is shabby but public architecture, especially temple, castle and palace, was grand. This reminds me that the wealth of nation couldn’t be merely judged by magnificent public building, which even a weak nation would squeeze its people to own.

3.6

用心棒

(Yojimbo)

Yojimbo means bodyguard in Japanese. In this movie it refers to ronin who was employed to fight for his master

3.5

Inherit the Wind

A paradigm of court movies

3.5

Identity

Well-written screenplay

3.4

Gosford Park

A collection of the best English actors and actresses

3.3

Lost in Translation

Exploring an old topic from a novel point, the young director and screenwriter, Sofia Coppola, is not seasoned enough to delve deeply into the human nature. Instead of being acknowledged for inspiration, Wong Ka Wai should do it himself with Sofia as his aide, which may make it a perfect one. Besides, Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray were fairly successful with their roles.

3.3

The Gods Must Be Crazy

An innovative and interesting production

3.2

Color of Money

It all happened too suddenly that Paul Newman lost his cunning to Tom Cruise. There should have been more transition.

3.2

爱君如梦

(Dream of Dance)

The wild ending spoils this rarely good HK movie

3.1

Hidalgo

A nice documentary of Arabic landscape

3.0

那山那人那狗
(Postmen in the Mountains)

A rural movie with fragmentary but concrete story

3.0

日本的悲剧

(A Japanese Tragedy)

This is not just a Japanese tragedy.

2.9

The Gods Must Be Crazy II

2.9

Tanguy

A weird story without much deep analysis into the social phenomenon that the western society no longer tolerates a stay-home grown-up. The son’s Oriental, especially Chinese, cultural background not at all affects the plot, obviously intended just to add some exotic element. The ending is hasty. The Chinese music it employed was horribly grass-root, to use a nice word. Generally, it’s a pleasantly made farce.

2.8

暖

(Nuan)

I was more than often confused between reality and remembrance. The director should have done something to differentiate them.

2.8

春桃
(One Woman For Two)

The simple story could have been better elaborated

2.7

半生缘

(Eighteen Springs)

Too many irrelevant branches are involved. The main story was unavoidably eroded

2.7

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The screenplay didn’t clearly tell the audience that Harry’s father and the three others were best friends, who often turned into various animals;
The new director bears a quite different style in presenting only plot that he thought to be important, as well as in focusing on details he regards as crucial;
Daniel, Emma and Rupert are all growing up, while Dumbledore is obviously getting decrepit in this episode…
All these factors affects. And what used to be so perfect a movie series of Harry Potter therefore might seem quite different to some if not most.
None the less, if one never watched the first two episodes, he might like this one. After all, it’s often our conservatism that refrain ourselves from appreciating novelty.

2.6

晚春
(Late Spring)

A classic Japanese movie. But the pace is too slow!

2.6

My Cousin Vinny

The horrible thing is: our lawyer friend told us that such lawyer does exist, everywhere!

2.5

变脸

(The King of Masks)

A nice story but not a great movie.

2.5

On the Waterfront

Cannot understand why this mediocre movie was ranked top ten in US movie history

2.4

Lagaan: Once Upon A Time in India

The good thing is that it doesn’t have that much boring dance, (but nonetheless incurably lengthy); the bad thing is that it chose too ugly Britons (the caricatured captain has no eye while Elizabeth has no neck). The trio dance between the Indian couple and Eliz is not like a farce, but rather, is a farce.

2.4

手机
(Cell phone)

Cell phone simply fails to improve communication between us

2.3

自娱自乐

(Master of Everything)

A delightful comedy about China’s country life and DV fashion

2.3

笼人

(Cage Men)

It exposes the wrong side of Hong Kong

2.3

Shrek II

2.2

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

The story is not concrete enough.

2.2

一盘没有下完的棋

（An Unfinished Chess Game）

Classics are not necessarily good, like this one. Its flashback structure is poorly organized.

2.1

We Are Soldiers

The problem with this vague war movie is that I don’t know what it wants to say. What kept haunting me is: what if VietCom had the same firepower as US did?

2.1

战国英豪/武士勤王记
(The Hidden Fortress)

It’s funny but too lengthy

2.0

From Hell

Its screenplay was well written.

2.0

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

An interesting sci-fi that reminds one of many classics

1.9

秋天的童话

（An Autumn’s Tale）

What a superfluous ending!

1.9

燕尾蝶

(Swallow-tailed Butterfly)

The central point of this surreal movie is: you might be a caterpillar wriggling in mud, but you are by nature to be a beautiful butterfly. You might never become one, but you always are.

1.8

风月

(Temptress Moon)

An absurd story

1.7

The Last Samurai

Several fundamental and fatal errors committed by either side:
Why didn’t Omura also arrest Katsumoto’s guards when he arrested the Katsumoto?
Why didn’t Omura investigate in advance the terrain behind the hill that Katsumoto ambushed his troops?
Why did Omura order his infantry to march without artillery clearing the enemy position?
Why did Katsumoto order his cavalry to charge? The reason they managed to broke through for a while was that their enemy firepower was not enough. After Omura used machinegun, the battle became a massacre.
Conclusion: it’s a very stupid movie.

1.7

日本之夜与雾
（Japan in Night and Fog）

This movie spent two hours to show commonsense about students’ political movement, which makes me recall TianAnMen Crashdown of China. They are simply unable to accomplish anything but capable enough to spoil everything.

1.6

Master and Commander: The Far Side of The World

This movie doesn’t make much sense at all. I don’t know what’s it talking about.

1.6

芬妮的微笑
(On the Other Side of the Bridge)

This is a movie that its leading role actor criticized it during its preview. What a waste of such a good topic.

1.5

座头市与用心棒

(Zatoichi & Yojimbo)

The two actors acted well but the plot is not well written

1.4

American Wedding

What a vulgar farce!

1.3

Once Upon a Time in Mexico

It is commented as the “sexiest movie” To whom? Primary school girls?

1.3

Trapped in Paradise

Why did Nicolas Cage get involved in such comedy?

1.2

黄飞鸿之武状元

(Once upon a time in China)

Commercial but not junk movie, although the “Man-darin” is kind of stupid humor.

1.1

Home Alone I

1.0

Home Alone II

0.9

Around the World in 80 Days

A slipshod production that insult audience’s intelligence

0.8

Sergeant Bilko

It’s shocking that this movie take granted that cheating is a decent solution in army training.

0.7

龙兄虎弟
(Armors of God)

Junk movie made in 1980s

0.6

Cruel Intentions

I always wonder what type of queer audience such movie is made to target at.

0.5

Peter Pan

Imagine children brought up watching such kind of nonsense

0.4

Tomb Raider II

Loyally inherits the style of the first episode

0.3

Evil Woman

I dun think I would ever watch such junk other than in a boring Indian hotel at Srinagar whose shops were on strike in protest against state election

0.2

十面埋伏
(House of Flying Daggers)

Zhang Yimou should become a documentary director for Discovery or National Geography Channel
Junk movie of 2004

0.0