Eastern Bandits (aka 'An Inaccurate Memoir') (2012) - Any good?

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

Is Eastern Bandits worth a go.

Well this review seems to like it.

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Eastern Bandits – Review

by Marcello on May 20, 2014

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Contents

Overview

Full Article

Rating

Comments

Overview

Item Reviewed

Eastern Bandits – Review

Author

Marcello

Synopsis

Movie is set during a period of time when Japanese invaded China. The story is told from Gao's perspective, a soldier seeking revenge from the Japanese in trying to assassinate the visiting Japanese chief in command.

Country

China

DIrected By

Shu-peng Yang

East taught west how to make a western eastern.

Movie is set during a period of time when Japanese invaded China. The story is told from Gao’s perspective, a soldier seeking revenge from the Japanese in trying to assassinate the visiting Japanese chief in command. In the process of plotting such scheme, he had a chance encounter with a local Mafia, lead by its charismatic leader Fang. Fang had a bandit of followers, of which one is Fang’s sister. Fang in the past have rescued many of these followers using his own blood and as a result all the members in the bandit formed a life long bond and friendship. When Gao realizes he could use the firearms and man power of Fang’s bandit, he sets up a scheme to get captured by Fang on purpose. When Fang found out – he was extremely angry and upset and almost killed Gao, but Gao is saved by Fang’s sister because she clearly developed feelings for Gao after seeing how he fared during the interrogation phases when he was in Fang’s capture. Gao later redeems himself by saving Fang and all of his bandit members when a bank robbery went wrong. From there on, Gao partners with Fang to take down the Japanese chief in command. Pi Fu in Chinese means commoner, and this is a movie about friendship, loyalty and brotherhood.

Gao tells this fantastic story about anonymous “heroes”, those who eventually written history never recognize. Through a series of fortuitous events the group is brought up the idea of making the big hit that could change the course of history. This is nothing more and nothing less than kidnapping the brother of the Japanese Emperor, thus forcing the withdrawal of all Chinese troops and get a good slice in the form of rescue step.

easternbandits2

The music and the humor are the two things that make you excuse the completely excessive violence. Like in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), it is so fun that we allow moral belief to be suspended for two hours. If that doesn’t bode well with you, just remember Arnold Schwarzenegger’s immortal line about action movie killing in True Lies (1994): “They were all bad!” There aren’t a lot of good guys in this movie, but we are totally captivated by their incredible abilities while they do bad things. The stunts are incredible.

And you know what? I think it was real. Either South Korea has great CGI artists or (gasp!) the director was concerned with authenticity and grit. The stunts swept me up so I was not questioning how they did it as much as rubbing my eyes to make sure I had seen right. The script is full of humor and homage. It allows the actors to have fun with their characters, while filling it with hilarious dialogue. Put simply, Eastern Bandits invokes something greater than any Great movie. It, like Pulp Fiction and the Indiana Jones series, makes you remember how much fun you had watching a movie. And, at the end of the day, isn’t this the only reason we watch movies? Most movies, no matter how much fun they try to invoke, always end up being a little too dark. Not this one. I could not have had more fun. But guaranteed: the last 30 minutes or so are one of the craziest that i’ve ever seen, a great climax to a film which relied very little in any build-up. The soundtrack adds a lot to this final sequences as well. It is a popcorn flick, so there is nothing to be expected in the end. May be a good choice for a Friday’s night.

GD Y-Y

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

There's only one way to find out? Off to the Library!!!!!

[Secret Executioner]

There's only one way to find out? Off to the Library!!!!!

Talk about a wasted occasion to post a .gif... Should have been:

To the library !!

[One Armed Boxer]

The music and the humor are the two things that make you excuse the completely excessive violence. Like in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), it is so fun that we allow moral belief to be suspended for two hours. If that doesn’t bode well with you, just remember Arnold Schwarzenegger’s immortal line about action movie killing in True Lies (1994): “They were all bad!” There aren’t a lot of good guys in this movie, but we are totally captivated by their incredible abilities while they do bad things. The stunts are incredible.

And you know what? I think it was real. Either South Korea has great CGI artists or (gasp!) the director was concerned with authenticity and grit. The stunts swept me up so I was not questioning how they did it as much as rubbing my eyes to make sure I had seen right. The script is full of humor and homage. It allows the actors to have fun with their characters, while filling it with hilarious dialogue. Put simply, Eastern Bandits invokes something greater than any Great movie. It, like Pulp Fiction and the Indiana Jones series, makes you remember how much fun you had watching a movie. And, at the end of the day, isn’t this the only reason we watch movies? Most movies, no matter how much fun they try to invoke, always end up being a little too dark. Not this one. I could not have had more fun. But guaranteed: the last 30 minutes or so are one of the craziest that i’ve ever seen, a great climax to a film which relied very little in any build-up. The soundtrack adds a lot to this final sequences as well. It is a popcorn flick, so there is nothing to be expected in the end. May be a good choice for a Friday’s night.

GD Y-Y

GD Y-Y, I have absolutely no idea what you've done here, but what you've posted above has nothing to do with 'Eastern Bandits', it's a review for the movie 'The Good, The Bad, The Weird' -

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0901487/reviews-75

Please try to stick to posting reviews of the actual movie you're posting about, or this could be potentially very confusing and misleading for others who are reading the post.

[thekfc]

Yep, I think GD Y-Y copy and paste the wrong review.

The description is for Eastern Bandits aka An Inaccurate Memoir but the review is for TG, TB TW.

[Neil Koch]

It's on Netflix streaming. I've had it in my queue for a while but haven't gotten around to watching it. Mainland stuff tends to not excite me too much.

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

gd y-y, i have absolutely no idea what you've done here, but what you've posted above has nothing to do with 'eastern bandits', it's a review for the movie 'the good, the bad, the weird' -

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0901487/reviews-75

please try to stick to posting reviews of the actual movie you're posting about, or this could be potentially very confusing and misleading for others who are reading the post.

oops.

But wait.

Here is the link.....I do not think I am imagining what is presented here am I. LOL.

See for yourself.

http://japancinema.net/2014/05/20/eastern-bandits-review/

The same cover of the movie I bought at Cheapos.

These are TWO different reviews.

I think you are in the wrong here or the reviewer was.

So what is it?

GD Y-Y

[thekfc]

I think somebody is copying somebody. The same review for two different movies on two different sites.

On Japancinema.net (Review for Easstern Bandits) is says:

The music and the humor are the two things that make you excuse the completely excessive violence. Like in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), it is so fun that we allow moral belief to be suspended for two hours. If that doesn’t bode well with you, just remember Arnold Schwarzenegger’s immortal line about action movie killing in True Lies (1994): “They were all bad!” There aren’t a lot of good guys in this movie, but we are totally captivated by their incredible abilities while they do bad things. The stunts are incredible.

And you know what? I think it was real. Either South Korea has great CGI artists or (gasp!) the director was concerned with authenticity and grit. The stunts swept me up so I was not questioning how they did it as much as rubbing my eyes to make sure I had seen right. The script is full of humor and homage. It allows the actors to have fun with their characters, while filling it with hilarious dialogue. Put simply, Eastern Bandits invokes something greater than any Great movie. It, like Pulp Fiction and the Indiana Jones series, makes you remember how much fun you had watching a movie. And, at the end of the day, isn’t this the only reason we watch movies? Most movies, no matter how much fun they try to invoke, always end up being a little too dark. Not this one. I could not have had more fun. But guaranteed: the last 30 minutes or so are one of the craziest that i’ve ever seen, a great climax to a film which relied very little in any build-up. The soundtrack adds a lot to this final sequences as well. It is a popcorn flick, so there is nothing to be expected in the end. May be a good choice for a Friday’s night.

While on IMDB (Review for The Good Bad, The Weird) it says:

The music and the humor are the two things that make you excuse the completely excessive violence. Like in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), it is so fun that we allow moral belief to be suspended for two hours. If that doesn't bode well with you, just remember Arnold Schwarzenegger's immortal line about action movie killing in True Lies (1994): "They were all bad!" There aren't a lot of good guys in this movie, but we are totally captivated by their incredible abilities while they do bad things. The stunts are incredible. There are gunfights in which the Good is literally jumping from roof to roof while shooting at bad guys.

And you know what? I think it was real. Either South Korea has great CGI artists or (gasp!) the director was concerned with authenticity and grit. The stunts swept me up so I was not questioning how they did it as much as rubbing my eyes to make sure I had seen right. The script is full of humor and homage. It allows the actors to have fun with their characters, while filling it with hilarious dialogue. "The bounty on you is 300 won." "What? I'm only worth a piano?" "A used piano at that." Plus, it tips its hat to the Western tradition that you have to show that the world is shrinking around our outlaws of the west. The most obvious show of this theme is actually poignant, original and funny. Put simply, The Good, the Bad, the Weird invokes something greater than any Great movie. It, like Pulp Fiction and the Indiana Jones series, makes you remember how much fun you had watching a movie. And, at the end of the day, isn't this the only reason we watch movies? Most movies, no matter how much fun they try to invoke, always end up being a little too dark. Not this one. I could not have had more fun.

Somebody change the name of the movie in the review - see what I highlighted in red. They also added/changed a sentence or two to the reviews

[thekfc]

Come to think of it, didn't somebody stole one of Takuma's review and passed it off as their own?

Could the same thing be happening here?

[thekfc]

Just found the thread where Takuma said that someone did ripoff his review of Gun Woman. And it was someone from JapanCinema.net

See post #10 from the link

http://www.kungfucinema.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21491

And guess what?

It looks like JapanCinema.net rippoff another review.

One sentence from their review for Eastern Bandits states Either South Korea has great CGI artists or (gasp!) the director was concerned with authenticity and grit.

I may be mistaken but I dont think that Eastern Bandits is a South Korean production..

[One Armed Boxer]

One sentence from their review for Eastern Bandits states Either South Korea has great CGI artists or (gasp!) the director was concerned with authenticity and grit.

I may be mistaken but I dont think that Eastern Bandits is a South Korean production..

JapanCinema.net should be pulled off the net for pulling this type of nonsense. There's plagiarism, and then there's plagiarism.

As for 'Eastern Bandits', it's a Mainland China production, nothing to do with Korea. The hack who ripped off the review obviously overlooked this detail and forgot to change it, which is actually the line which gave it away for me and decide to do some digging.

[thekfc]

Ok, I just checked out 3 of JapanCinema.net reviews.

2 of them are are almost the same as what is posted on IMBD (with a few words added or taken off) and the 3rd though different have the same heading.

Traffickers

Same head line

Love it or hate it

Rape Zombie: Lust of the Dead

http://japancinema.net/2014/10/10/rape-zombie-lust-of-the-dead-review/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2271565/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

That was basically it, the entire movie wrapped up in a short summary. The storyline is entertaining enough in its oddity and absurdity. But it can only carry the movie so far, because there is little else to keep the movie afloat. That is, unless you are into soft core Japanese pornography and really awful zombie make-up.

The acting in the movie was as you'd expect from a movie with the title "Rape Zombie: Lust of the Dead". So don't get your hopes up here.

Personally I think that director Naoyuki Tomomatsu was spending a little too much time filming staged rape scenes with poor-looking zombies, instead of focusing on establishing a proper movie.

There are two sequels to "Rape Zombie: Lust of the Dead" that I am familiar with, as I found them on Amazon. But at the outrageous price they are set and after having seen the train wreck that is "Rape Zombie: Lust of the Dead", then I will call it quits here and not invest in further installments to this low budget sleaze-fest.

No Tears For The Dead.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3697566/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

http://japancinema.net/2014/09/18/no-tears-for-the-dead-review/

The movie is about a hit man from America’s mid-west who is of Korean decent. When he botches what was supposed to be his last job by killing an innocent kid, he is sent to Korea to fix what he screwed up by killing the kid’s mother. It sounds a bit like a fish out of water story, but the movie only proves that the crime world is the crime world no matter what country you are from.

The money part is where all the crime Drama comes in as it’s about a Korean gang uses a legit network to launder Triad money, The plot tries to be complex with the an everyone is not who they seem kind of situation. They film also tries to give some depth to the main character showing us why a harden hit man would allow an accidentally killing to melt his heart like it did. For me the story was not as complex as the action sequences.

[Takuma]

They've ripped tons of reviews from sites like IMDb, Twitch, my blog, and many others.

That guy Marcello is the biggest crook. He usually makes his reviews by combining paragraphs from two or three different reviews, so they always end up pretty non-sensical and sometimes totally contradictory. A friend of mine did a bit of detective work and figured that Marcello is probably the side admin.

Trying to contact them is useless. They don't respond to emails and comments are deleted.

Here's just a couple of examples of reviews they've stolen:

The War and a Woman

http://japancinema.net/2014/09/03/the-war-and-a-woman-review/

Ripped from:

http://twitchfilm.com/2013/05/review-a-woman-and-war-senso-no-hitori-no-onna.html

http://pageofmadness.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/the-war-and-a-woman-senso-to-hitori-no-onna/

Profound Desires of the Gods

http://japancinema.net/2010/07/12/profound-desires-of-the-gods-review/

Ripped from:

http://www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk/reviews/2010/07/03/profound-desires-of-the-gods/

http://www.cineoutsider.com/reviews/bluray/p/profound_desires_of_the_gods.html

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/228-movies-home-media/51092886?page=25

[thekfc]

I wonder if they ripoff any reviews from this site.

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

So G DYY gets full credit for being detective? He the first one to broke the story? My vote for GD YY as part of the moderation team? You have my vote G DYY!!!

[thekfc]

I had some time on my hand, sitting at my desk waiting for some repairs to be done before we can go back to work.

I decided to check a few of Marcello's reviews; only had a chance to check out 9 and guess what? ALL 9 were in one way or another have sentences/paragraphs taken from someone's else review.

That Demon Within

http://japancinema.net/2014/04/24/that-demon-within-review/

http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2014/04/17/movie-review-that-demon-within-both-good-cop-and-bad-cop/LxpRf2DyuJVts294waj5nI/story.html

“That Demon Within” ends up a moody mess. Lam juggles so many tropes — the vigilante cop, the man with a mysterious past, the visual blur of reality and fantasy — everything tumbles

The White Storm:

http://japancinema.net/2014/04/24/the-white-storm-review/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2957774/reviews

The acting? No need to say. The three of them play off each other very well. Of the three, I enjoyed Nick Cheung’s arc the most. He is a complete revelation in any role he has taken up. The ever dependent Sean Lau plays his character without histrionics but I could feel his pain. Just look at the scene where he has to make the Hobson’s choice. A lesser actor would have over-acted, not Sean Lau. Then Louis Koo. He has definitely improved much in his acting but I do feel he got the short end of the 3 sticks.

The writing is quite inspired and for some reason it reminds me of John Woo’s Bullet in the Head. A simple recurring motif cements the entire narrative together. There was no need for too much homo-erotic knowing looks or nods to suggest the themes of loyalty and honor. My wife’s favorite scene is when the 3 are at the hospital seeing Nick Cheung’s mom for the last time. It is an incredibly written scene. I have seen so many of these death scenes but nothing like this. The words that spew out of their lips are amazingly poignant.

Police Story 2013:

http://japancinema.net/2014/06/20/police-story-2013-review/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2599716/reviews-2

The film also lacks a compelling villain, his motivations for doing the kidnapping are very personal but the film doesn’t provide any scenes for the audience to empathize with his loss. A great villain normally have a plan that is well thought-out and precise. They know when should they strike and where it hurts the most. They have a goal and clearly knows the best way to accomplish it. This one doesn’t.

Pedicab Driver:

http://japancinema.net/2014/04/30/pedicab-driver-review/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098155/reviews-4Two entire paragraphs and....

Also some funny scenes are created out of Sammo’s passion for Ping. Still, the greatest amazement-filled laugh came during the scenes depicted in the former pharagraph as the imagery of big and tall men flying with great force over the screen to the walls or furniture is simply INSANE and so breathtaking I just cannot hide my feelings and thoughts about these Eastern film makers when I witness something like this, and this is nothing but positive and appreciating reaction, of course.

The Tale Of Zatoichi

http://japancinema.net/2014/04/03/the-tale-of-zatoichi-review/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056714/reviews-18

So it follows that the most interesting conflict in the movie is not the yakuza warfare between the Iioka and Sasagawa gangs, but the conflict between Zatoichi and Hirate. Hirate is dying of consumption, and seems to prefer death by Zatoichi’s sword rather than let his illness or an unworthy gangster take his life.

The Hidden Fortress

http://japancinema.net/2014/03/13/the-hidden-fortress-review/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051808/reviews-83

The Hidden Fortress, overall, has a much lighter tone than some of Kurosawa’s other films set in the same setting. While most of his films have that element of subtle dark humor, Kurosawa obviously doesn’t skimp on the artistry for a second. He heavily employs the use of very long takes for this film, which has a great effect in unexpected places. Kurosawa artistically blends comic relief and more serious action in such a great way that it is easy to get lost in the film when looking at it as a whole.

On The Job

http://japancinema.net/2014/02/07/on-the-job-review/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2717558/reviews

The technical aspects of the film are very good, particularly the cinematography and the film editing. The atmosphere created was very tense and exciting. The suspense was unbearable as the pacing is frenetic and you would not know what will happen with succeeding scenes. This film is NOT predictable.

Cold Eyes

http://japancinema.net/2013/12/30/cold-eyes-review/

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2969656/reviews

Cold Eyes is a movie that delivers, and the action is not over the top, so it may be unsatisfying for Hollywood standards, but what it lacks in explosions and heart pounding chases, fulfill with characters and situations that we care,so, if you like good thriller with some action just sit and enjoy this Korean Movie!

Commitment

http://japancinema.net/2014/01/24/commitment-review/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/goingoutguide/movies/commitment-movie-review/2013/12/04/b2256c90-56b3-11e3-835d-e7173847c7cc_story.html

The Washington Post

The filmmakers are committed to tragic romanticism. If they muster few thrills and no surprises, at least they don’t stoop to a happy ending. For Choi’s fans, “Commitment” should provide a good cry. Even if its script would have benefited from a few laughs.

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

So G DYY gets full credit for being detective? He the first one to broke the story? My vote for GD YY as part of the moderation team? You have my vote G DYY!!!

Talk about opening up the proverbial:

Never expected this outcome.

Thanks OKFC.

GD Y-Y

[GOLDEN DRAGON YIN-YANG]

And thanks to the rest of you.

You just do not know what is real or not on the WWW.

GD y-Y