review: Blood Brothers...

... my holidays just started today. so after coming back from the FAR FAR AWAY KTT SEPANG, i dropped by at jusco klang to watch a movie...
... actually i wanted to watch transformers and Harry Potter, but the time was too late, and by the time i got there, jay chou's Secret has started already... so after much conflict, i decided to watch this BLOOD BROTHERS, which has a solid cast, including our nice Daniel Wu, Liu Ye, Zhang Zhen, Yang You Ning, and Shu Qi...
...at first i thought this movie will be quite boring and long-winded, as i didn't know anything about the story...( how brave am i to watch a movie of which i don't even know what the movie is about!)... however, it actually turned out to be a good movie, good enough for those who are into old-Shanghai gang fight...
...the story is about three good friends(the three main actors), who are from a rural area in China (which i suspected is SuZhou, because of its beautiful and unique sceneries)... these three "brothers" went to Shanghai, in order to make more money and lead to a better life... Daniel Wu and Yang You Ning ended up as trishaw-men and their "big brother", Liu Ye, became a waiter at a renown night club, Paradise...the story goes on as they started to get involved in Shanghai's underground organizations' fights, and their encounter with the two other characters, Zhang Zhen, playing Mark, and Shu Qi, the main actress, who plays Lulu, the night club singer... Liu Ye eventually became the big man in the organisation, due to his brutal personalities, and he became more and more cruel, brutal, and cold-blooded...when the leader of the organization got to know that Zhang Zhen was actually trying to murder him over the years( Zhang Zhen is actually his own brother!) and he also, had an affair with Shu Qi, his "woman", the leader ordered them to kill the both of them... Daniel Wu, who was the good friend of them two, refused to kill them and this led to the break-up of the two brothers... Daniel Wu helped the couple to escape, and after a gun fight between the brothers, they managed to escape, as Yang You Ning finally shot his own brother... however, the kind-hearted young guy ended up dead, beaten by his brother's people when he went back for his injured brother... and starting from this point, a series of killing and gun-shooting took place... the leader died, being killed by Liu Ye himself, and he became the new leader... after that, Shu Qi died too, when they got tracked down by Liu Ye's people down at their hometown... at last , Liu Ye himself got killed by Zhang Zhen, who went to Shanghai again with Daniel Wu to take revenge on Shu Qi's death...
... a very long and complicated storyline i guess, but these good actors really did a good job in portraying their roles in the story...Liu Ye, who plays Kang in the movie, is really good...he plays Kang perfectly i think, and again, accounts have to be given to his superb acting skills!! Shu Qi, too, did a great job as the main actress, even though it's not really perfect... Daniel Wu and Yang You Ning, did their parts equally good, and the convincing performance from Zhang Zhen surely has to be taken into accounts for the success of this movie...
...after watching this movie, i feel rather sad... if only they stayed in SuZhou, if only they didn't decide to go Shanghai, then they would not be involved in all these things... Shanghai , is just like a place for people to fight for their glory, pride and fame... the big city provides them a stage for them to shine brightly, but to achieve this, a lot of things have to be sacrificed, nothing comes without a fight, or a trade... people there chase their dreams and ambition, looking for their own paradise, but without realising , they are losing themselves... when they actually realised, it's too late for them to turn back... some people realised that they are losing themselves, but they still continue on, because their desires have become too strong that they couldn't afford to give them up...
... there were two lines that i remembered well, and they had a strong impact on me... the first one sounds like this " everyone is looking for their own paradise, but they never realised that their paradise are always the one they have in the very beginning..."... another line is like this..." after going on so many routes in life, actually life can be simple and easy..." yes, life can actually be as simple as it is, just that people tend to forget about it...
... this movie is highly recommended by me, but some people may find it boring, if they are not into this type of movie...