The Flowers of War Movie Review

The Flowers of War

                                                                  

The Flowers of War is a historical drama war film released in 2011. This movie is directed by Zhang Yimou and its plot is based on the novel “13 Flowers of Nanjing” by Chinese-American author Geling Yan. The major roles of The Flowers of War are played by Christian Bale, Ni Ni, Zhang Xinyi, Tong Dawei, Atsuro Watabe, Shigeo Kobayashi and Cao Kefan. The plot of this movie is set on Nanking, China during the Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937.

The Flowers of War tells the story of survival of an American man, a group of schoolgirls and a group of prostitutes who are living together in a church. This is a beautiful story of how crisis brings people together and how humanity comes out of people when they are surrounded by brutality.  

Christian Bale and Ni Ni in a scene of The Flowers of War

Plot:

The Flowers of War starts with a war scene where a group of Chinese soldiers ambush a group of invading Japanese army who were chasing a group of schoolgirls. Although the Japanese army faces large damage at the beginning, but soon they bring strong reinforcements and crash the Chinese resistance, leaving only two survivors of the Chinese army. But in the meantime, the group of schoolgirls manage to reach a church where they were supposed to come for shelter. While going there, they meet an American mortician named John Miller who is also heading for the same church to bury the priest.  

After reaching there, John meets the caretaker of that church (a small boy) but can’t find the body of the priest. He still demands money as he has come all the way for his job. He doesn’t care much about helping others in a situation like this, instead he tries to get comfortable in living in that church as the priest. Soon a group of prostitutes come to that church seeking for shelter, claiming that the church’s another caretaker has taken bribe from them to give them shelter here. As soon as they arrive, they start to flirt with John. Later, they hide in the cellar of the church.

Now, the two survivors of the Chinese army from the previous fight come to that church. One of them is severely wounded. The other one carries him and leaves him at the prostitutes’ care. He then leaves the church and takes position in a nearby collapsed building. Inside the church, the schoolgirls and the prostitutes don’t get along much, but somehow manages to live. John is attracted to the leader of the prostitutes and tries to interest her in him. She offers John that she, with her team, will satisfy John if he can take them to the nearby safe camp.

But time doesn’t pass peacefully, a group of Japanese army attacks the church and after searching, finds the group of hiding schoolgirls. But a girl shows a noble gesture by not getting into the cellar when she was being chased, thus helping the prostitutes stay hidden in the cellar.  Some members of the army get brutal and try to rape the girls. John tries to stop them and fails. Then the lone survivor of that Chinese army shoots some of the Japanese army which gives away his hiding position. The Japanese soldiers leave the girls and go looking for him. He alone kills a good number of Japanese soldiers and finally gets killed.

Then a Japanese high ranked officer comes to the church with his team. The schoolgirls sing for him. Seeing everything, the officer gives them his words for their safety and also appoints some soldiers around the church for the safety of everyone living there. With the officer, there is a Chinese man who’s daughter is there among the schoolgirls. He is helping the Japanese only to find safety for his family. At a chance which came later on, John asks him for some parts for the damaged truck of the church, so that he could take everyone to safe camp. He says he’ll try his best to help.

One day, John finds two of the prostitutes missing. They went to their previous home, one to bring her earrings and another to bring strings for her musical instruments with which, she wants to play to the wounded soldier.  John rushes to search for them with the caretaker of the church knowing they will not survive for long in this warzone. He finally finds them, one killed and another brutally raped before being killed. John then comes back to the church.

Few days later, the Japanese officer visits the church again and gives John a written order that the schoolgirls and a prostitute (who has accidentally got in the schoolgirls’ team) will have to sing at a victory celebration of the Japanese army. Fearing the worst, John doesn’t agree to send the girls. But the officer warns him that it is an order from higher officers and they may use force to carry on this order.

Everybody at the church can guess what is there in the girls’ fate. At the party, they will be brutally raped and even may get killed. Nobody wants the girls to go to that party. But John has no ways to say no. So, to avoid this horrific fate, later on that night, all the schoolgirls together try to commit suicide by jumping off the bell tower of the church. John and the prostitutes try to stop them and then the leader of the prostitutes says that they will go to that party instead of the girls.

The last part of this movie is about their attempt to save the schoolgirls and the fate of John, the caretaker, the schoolgirls and the prostitutes. Can they deceive the eyes of the Japanese army? Can they be saved? You have to watch the movie to know the answers.

My review about The Flowers of War:

First of all, I felt that The Flowers of War is a beautiful piece of work.

The plot was beautiful and touchy. Like other great war movies, The Flowers of War will make you hate a war and will make you worried about the innocent lives of a warzone. This movie has showed what a dreadful fate waits for some people who are not involved with the war in any way. The Flowers of War also shows some extraordinary examples of some good people in wartime. The direction and screenplay of this movie seemed excellent. 

The acting and dialogues are good in The Flowers of War. There is no question about the acting of Christian Bale and he has done a perfect job. The acting of all other characters, specially the schoolgirls’ and the prostitutes’ seemed fluent and natural. The dialogs were also good according to the movie’s plot. Same goes for makeup. The plot of The Flowers of War needed some glamour for the prostitutes (specially their leader) even in these situations and the director has matched them pretty well.

There are some war scenes in The Flowers of War which fitted with the movie’s subject nicely and seemed realistic. These scenes includes some killings, dead bodies and some rape scenes which were needed to express the shocking violence of a war and the director has shown them nicely without going too extreme. There is no direct nudity in The Flowers of War.

The special effects and music of The Flowers of War are also goods. I couldn’t catch any flaws in any scene or in the plot.

So, finally, I really liked The Flowers of War. To the fans of war movies, I’ll recommend this movie as a must see. If you are a fan of all other kinds of movies, for you also, The Flowers of War is a must see. 

For those who are interested: 

IMDB Link : The Flowers of War IMDB

Wikipedia link : The Flowers of War Wiki

To buy or rent this movie from Amazon, or to watch online, get the best deal here:  The Flowers of War Movie

Paranormal Activity 4 Movie Review

Paranormal Activity 4
                                                          

Paranormal Activity 4 is an American supernatural horror movie released in 2012. This movie is written by Christopher Landon and directed by the same directors of Paranormal Activity 3, Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost. Till now (May 2013), this is last movie of the famous series of Paranormal Activity.  The major roles of this film are played by Kathryn Newton, Matt Shively, Brady Allen, Aiden Lovekamp, Alexondra Lee, Stephen Dunham and Katie Featherston. 


In Paranormal Activity 4, we see the evil spirits are now haunting a new family and their target is to take the youngest boy of the family in their possession.

A scene from Paranormal Activity 4

Plot:
At the very beginning of Paranormal Activity 4, we see a small footage from the previous movie of this series, Paranormal Activity 3. Then a text says that, the little boy named Hunter and his evil possessed elder sister had gone missing and were never found again (after the incidents of Paranormal Activity 3).

Then the story of this movie starts, which revolves around a teenage girl named Alex. She has a friend, who has some kind of crush on her and flirts with her several times. Alex’s family consists of her parents and a little brother. 

One day, a women and her little son (nearly of the same age of Alex’s young brother) rent the house beside Alex’s. The new neighbors are not very keen to socialize with Alex’s family. The little boy doesn’t talk much. One day, Alex and her friend find that little boy in Alex’s tree house. Late at that night, Alex sees some cars including an ambulance in front of her neighbor’s house. Next morning, her mother tells her that the women has fallen sick suddenly and has been shifted to hospital, so the little boy will stay with them for a few days, as his mother has no relatives to take care of that boy.

Since the beginning, the boy behaves very strangely. He becomes good friend with Alex’s brother and they regularly talk with their imaginary friend. He also draws strange symbols on the back of Alex’s brother one day.  Alex’s friend keeps recording Alex’s movement from her computer, which also picks weird behavior of that boy. One day Alex’s friend does something with their TV game which fills the room with infrared dots. Then the camera inside that game also starts picking paranormal activities. The friend also turns different computer at different parts of the house to catch video footage of the surrounding. These cameras catch enough evidences of paranormal presence, but no one watches those footages other than the viewers of this movie.

In the next few days, strange things start to happen all over the house, like strange noises and footsteps, falling of the lamps, levitation of sleeping Alex and drowning of Alex’s little brother on bathtub for a long time and so on. One night Alex hears some noises from the garage when no one was at home. When she went there to check, she got trapped inside the garage and the car starts on its own, creating dense smoke inside the garage. She was almost killed before she could get in the car to break the garage door. None of her parents believe in these unusual incidents. The video game camera records a footage where a small boy’s presence was seen behind Alex’s brother and another where Alex’s brother was arguing with an invisible person about his name not being Hunter.

While these things kept on happening, one night Alex saw some cars in front of her neighbor’s house when the house was supposed to be empty. 

Alex and her friend takes these activities seriously while their parents don’t. But the demonic presence does not stay peaceful for long with its game of scaring people. Soon it strikes violently to reach its target, that is, to take Alex’s little brother.

Kathryn Newton In Paranormal Activity 4

My reviews about Paranormal Activity 4:
First of all, I liked Paranormal Activity 4 like all others of this series. But I must say, I’m a fan of this Paranormal Activity series, so I’m not sure how much the other people (not fan of this series) will like it.

The plot is good. I must say, the plot, specially the endings are almost same for all of the movies of this series which is getting boring. There is no surprise or no twist of story at the end of Paranormal Activity 4. Whoever has watched the other movies of this series can guess what is happening at the end and this movie will not disappoint you, which is not a good thing in this case. The excitement of Paranormal Activity 1 is long gone.

The acting, makeups and the special effects are also not bad in Paranormal Activity 4, at least nothing you can complain about. Same goes for the dialogues. Kathryn Newton specially looked very cute and charming in here.

I like the idea about how the cameras were set all over the house in Paranormal Activity 4. But it seemed unusual that nobody checked the recordings for most of the paranormal activities. 

If I’m not wrong, Paranormal Activity 4 is the first movie of the series which will show you the ghost or the demon directly and clearly. I felt this has reduced the beauty of this movie. Remember, the Paranormal Activity (the first one) was a beautiful and scary movie and that one didn't show the ghost at all, only showed the presence of the ghost. 

So, overall, Paranormal Activity 4 is a good horror movie I’d say. If you are fan of Paranormal Activity series, you will like it. If you’re not, I can’t say about you. But surely, its worth a try.

If you’ve seen Paranormal Activity 4, then how do you like it? Feel free to comment on my reviews.

For those who are interested,

IMDB Link: Paranormal Activity 4 IMDB
Wikipedia link: Paranormal Activity 4 Wiki

To buy or rent this the unrated version of this movie on Amazon, or to watch online, click here :  Paranormal Activity 4 Movie

The Millionaire Tour Movie Review

The Millionaire Tour

                                                                 

The Millionaire Tour is an action thriller movie released in 2012. The writers of this movie are  Inon Shampanier, Natalie Shampanier and director is Inon Shampanier. The Millionaire Tour has a very limited set of actors and actresses, where the major roles are played by Dominic Monaghan, Jordan Belfi, Rick Gomez, Agnes Bruckner (whom we've seen in the horror movie The Pact and in the erotic thriller Breaking The Girls), Bruce Davison and Marisa Petroro.

The Millionaire Tour is about a man who gets kidnapped by some hijackers just after he lands in a city and his attempts to convince the hijackers that he is not the man the hijackers think he is.

A Scene from The Millionaire Tour

Plot:

A man named Greg lands at an airport (details of his journey is not shown). When he starts walking to his destination, a cab stops and the driver offers him a ride by saying a fixed fare. After a little bargaining, they both agree on a price and he rides the cab. As soon as they start, the cab gets blocked by a bus and the driver becomes frustrated saying this happens everyday. When the bus  moves and they start again, a women suddenly comes in front of the cab and gets hurt by it. Greg and the driver comes down and out of generosity, they offer the girl and a man with him a ride to their destination and they accept it.

They start the journey together. The man with the girl keeps irritating Greg continuously and when Greg decides to get out of the cab, he pulls out a gun. They (the girl and the man with her) kidnaps Greg and tells him a story of a “millionaire tour” where some kidnappers kidnaps a millionaire and robs all his money by using his cards at different ATMs. They plan to do the same with Greg.

So, according to their plan, the stop at an ATM booth and make Greg withdraw money from the booth. They don’t use Greg’s cards themselves, because the camera at the booth may catch their faces. They head next to a ATM booth in a store. The girl doesn’t like the idea of using the booth of a store, but the man pushes him. When both of them gets out of the car to have a discussion, Greg tells the cab driver that together they can fight them, but the driver doesn’t agree. Then Greg goes to the store with the girl and after taking money from ATM, he runs off. But that is just for a few minutes before the kidnappers catch him again. But in the meantime, Greg manages to get rid of all his cards.

They again start their journey in that cab. Now the kidnappers tell Greg that they are sure that Greg is his fake name, he actually is a mysterious con artist who has stolen a huge sum of money from their boss. But Greg keep on denying that and insists on his real identity as Greg.

Now, the kidnappers find that Greg has no cards with him. They make Greg to write a cheque  and in one departmental store, the kidnapper (man) goes with Greg and convinces the girl in the counter to cash the cheque. Then Greg makes a handsome donation to a charity fund from that money, which makes the kidnapper angry.

They again start their journey and this time, the kidnappers pressure Greg to give his real identity as that con artist, but Greg keeps denying that. The kidnappers do not believe Greg considering the expertise of the thief. They even make Greg talk with the thief’s wife, but Greg says he doesn’t know that lady. Greg tells them about his job as a holy water seller and also tells them the speech he uses to make a sell, but the kidnapper man does not believe it where the girl gets a little confused.

At the night, when two of the kidnappers were having an argument about Greg, Greg suddenly attacks them and in that fight the girl gets shot. Then the cab driver gets out of taxi and shows his role behind the whole scene, or is it?

The next part of this movie is about taking Greg to the kidnapper’s boss, the real identity of the con artist and about Greg’s attempt to get freedom from the kidnappers.

My reviews about The Millionaire Tour:

First of all, I liked The Millionaire Tour. Although I will not mark it as a great movie, but still it’s a good one.

Before watching it and even after a few minutes after the movie started, I didn’t expect much from The Millionaire Tour. But I’m happy to find my assumptions proved wrong by the director.

The plot is simple but good. With a plot like this, its hard for the director to keep the suspense up throughout the movie, but here in The Millionaire Tour, the director has done that tough job successfully.

Although I’ve said the plot of The Millionaire Tour is good, but its predictable, specially for those who are the fans of thriller movies. By reading my review, I think you already can guess what will happen at the end. So although the ending is a surprise, but its not what we are not used to see.

Another downside of this movie is its casting. But don’t get me wrong, most of the artists of The Millionaire Tour have played their own part very well, you will not get to see any lack of good acting or anything. But if the same movie was made with more famous, more reputed and stronger actors, then it could bring much more pleasure the viewers.

The dialogues and make ups are also good. Most of this movie is the scenes inside a taxi cab, so according to the plot, The Millionaire Tour didn’t need much of special effects, so there is no overuse.

You can enjoy the whole The Millionaire Tour with kids, there is no scene where you will be embarrassed.

I don’t understand why The Millionaire Tour has not got much publicity when it has a good IMDB rating of 6.1 (when I’m writing this review). I couldn’t even find a Wikipedia page for it.

So finally, I’ll mark The Millionaire Tour as a good watch. When the movie finished, I didn’t feel my time was wasted, not even a bit. As I’ve said ago, The Millionaire Tour is not a great movie, but still a good one. I’d recommend to watch this movie to all movie lovers, specially to the fans of thrillers.

Watched it? Then how do you feel about The Millionaire Tour? Let us know in the comments.

For those who are interested,

IMDB link: The Millionaire Tour IMDB 
Wikipedia link: no wikipedia link was found for this film.

To buy or rent The Millionaire Tour from Amazon, click here: The Millionaire Tour DVD