Little People Big Dreams

This is a documentary about dwarves in China who are either current or past employees of a theme park called Dwarves Empire.

Liked how the director helped us to peek into the lives of these little people! I was quite impressed by one of them who even knew how to drive despite being so small!

Internet Movie Database Link

I love Hong Kong 2013

The story is about a restaurant owner who is being forced to sell his restaurant when his ex-employee ran away without paying his debt.

Liked the inspiring story about a hardworking man who was willing to help his friends at his own expense!

Internet Movie Database Link

The Experiment

The story is about a two week psychological experiment conducted to observe how a group of men would behave when given roles as guards or prisoners in a make-shift prison cell. The rules state that anyone can quit anytime, no violence is allowed and money is only given to all those who make it to the end of the experiment.

Quite scary to see how the guards slowly start to abuse their authority while the prisoners have to endure the stress of living in a cell! Realised that it is based on the true story only after watching the film!

Internet Movie Database Link

The Princess and the Warrior

The story is about how a couple met each other through pure coincidence. The guy, Bodo, is an ex-army guy who has psychological problems while the girl, Simone, works in the mental hospital. They met underneath a truck due to a series of events!

Liked the part of the soundtrack with the bell ringing in the background! Sounds very nice! Also liked the depiction of Simone at work and how she managed to find out who Bodo was and where he lived. The ending is very nicely done and it showed in an innovative way how Bodo was able to forget about his past and move forward.

Internet Movie Database Link

Roman Holiday

Just realised that I saw two 1953 film on the same day! Saw RH on Central but missed the first half an hour of it. The story is about a princess's adventure in Rome while on holiday there.

The princess, Ann, was given a tranquilizing shot when she tried to slip out from home but managed to escape anyway. She ended up sleeping on a bench and was taken home by a reporter, Bradley, who didn't know who she was at first. He then volunteered to show her around Rome. I began watching the film when they showed Ann deep in sleep on Bradley's bed.

Interesting to see how Bradley flipped Ann to a couch and she continued sleeping like nothing has happened! The adventures in Rome are interesting too! She walked along the streets, had a very nice haircut, rode on a scooter zipping through the busy traffic and danced in a party at night! Wouldn't be surprised if Rome used this film to promote tourism 50 years ago!

Internet Movie Database Link

Interesting Talk on TV

Accidentally stumbled on this interesting talk when I was channel surfing. Pheonix TV has a weekly programme where an expert would give a talk on a particular topic to university students with a question and answer session after that.

The topic this week is on 中医的传统与出路 which would roughly translate to the historical value of Tradition Chinese Medicine and its future development. The speaker talked about the different mental models of Western Medicine and Chinese Medicine. Western Medicine breaks the human body into small sub-components so as to pin point the problem and destroy the virus/bacteria that causes the problem. Chinese Medicine treats the human body as a whole system and concentrates on strengthening the body so that the natural defences kick in.

It is also interesting to hear about the speaker's experience during the SARS epidemic and his views on the impending Avian Flu epidemic!

Article Link

Dude, Where's My Car?

Chanced upon this little gem when I was channel surfing. The story is about what happened when two friends, Jesse and Chester, woke up and found that their car was missing. They soon discover that this is not a simple case of car theft and that they are involved in something very much bigger.

Jesse and Chester have many strange encounters as they try to recover their car. I like the interesting people that they meet and the funny gags that play on words! The film reminds me of The Discrete Charm of the Bourgeoisie when they show how sadistic the officer at the car pound is and the several dream sequences by one of the main leads. The way they repeat their dialogue also reminds me of how Kevin Bacon lamented to his psychologist in The Woodsman that their conversation is like a merry-go-round.

The finale is very well done! I am very impressed by how the two friends use both their wits and brawn to handle a super-emergency situation! The large scale special effects is visually stunning too!

Internet Movie Database Link

Art Museum By The Zoo

Missed a large part of the show as I thought Central was showing it another day when I saw the stills of "The Way Home" in the newspaper. In actual fact, the two Korean films were showing on the same 9pm time slot: the former on Central and the latter on Channel U. Incidentally, I was browsing http://us.imdb.com and found that both films are by the same director!

AMBTZ looked quite interesting from the few scenes that I saw! The male and female leads collaborated to write a story that talks about how a girl working at the art museum met a vet at the zoo. Didn't quite catch the details as I was watching "The Apprentice" at the same time but the leads do have the right chemistry together! The female lead, Shim Eun-Ha also acted in "Christmas In August" that is another film that I enjoyed.

Art Museum By the Zoo: IMDB Link
Art Museum By The Zoo: Korean Film Review

Christmas In August: IMDB Link
Christmas In August: Korean Film Review