how to turn an awful japanese horror movie into a brilliant comedy (1)
The most important thing when making a B-grade J-horror is to plan a movie loosely based on a popular video game. The looser, the loser, the better. Make the plot as unoriginal as you can, and with the investors’ approval because J-horror always sells, wield your imagination! Go wild, no holds barred.
But in any J-horror we always have the same characters, maybe different roles but since they all look the same to me, allow me to introduce the key characters:
The Father. He is the one who makes all the decisions in the household, including migrating his family to an isolated island where the people behave weirdly and stare kok at you at all time. Still he finds nothing wrong with it even though modern culture denotes that it is a recipe for impending disaster.
The Daughter. She is the one who actually takes care of the household because for some reason or the other, Japanese mothers have low high mortality rate. She has eyes straight out of Final Fantasy, she is usually of average height and slim build, and she is the one who just HAS to check out the source of weird creaks and screeches originating from various dark corners of a house/jungle. Almost needless to say, she is the heroine of the movie. Well, as heroine as a J-horror could produce.
The Mysterious Son. He who never speaks, stands like a timber, always manages to disappear even after being explicitly told to ‘don’t go too far away’, gazes and points his finger into empty space, basically the child you wish you never had. Why? Because if you have a child like that, be prepared to encounter a vengeful spirit at some point of your life. Why? Because J-horror says so.
So this is how your plot works:
So easy like grazing grass in a field of cows.
Next: The Mystery Unsolved.
oh the irony
This headline almost made me crap my pants.
US warns Iran on Iraq ‘meddling’
You don’t say…
cicak-man — funny and lame, all at once
We had to watch Cicak-man, we just had to. So we did.
I’m not going to elaborate on what/how/when etc of it, will just quote some news piece that I read from somewhere and comment on it. Probably from The Star? I dunno.
Lead actor Saiful Apek said the movie, which would be released during Hari Raya, had the potential to penetrate the Western market.
Not going to happen, sorry.
“This movie is so full of high-quality special effects that even Putrajaya, where the film was shot, looks different on screen,” he said.
I really want to remain patriotic and proud that this is the first Malaysian CG film etc etc etc, but then I remember that we *are* talking about heavy CG usage here….
Saiful said Cicak Man proves that Malaysia had creative talents to take the filming industry far.
Yes,definitely. But honestly I would rather see the money go to improving actors’ performances (not picking on Saiful Apek alone), and great on-location audio capture. I absolutely DETEST watching the words and lips not in sync. And it makes me absolutely UPSET because I KNOW it could have been SO MUCH BETTER.
When you record the audio in a studio, it’s damn different la. You’d feel compelled to add sounds that seem too out of place, tak secocok with the acting. I HATE the extra sounds the actors make. The extra hmms, tskk, hmmmm, tsk… quite killed my enjoyment.
In SEPET, the mobster’s sister’s acting was a bit kayu. But even in her kayu-ness, I liked her a lot better than Fasha Sanda, because her voice was recorded real-time. I don’t know whatever technical terms you want to call it, but to me it makes a HUGE ASS difference.
I don’t understand why Malaysian producers cannot invest more money in sound production. It’s only like one of the most important things in a good movie.
“Cicak Man is one of my greatest achievements in my 12-year acting career. It is high time we catch up with Hollywood, Bollywood and Hong Kong,” he said, adding that he had acted in 38 films.
Cool. I like Saiful Apek because he was funny in Senario, and I felt that he was better there.
Honestly, as an avid movier-goer, Cicak-man cannot fight HKG or Bollywood movies. Standards are like one heaven one earth. Cannot fight lah 
Maybe set lower, more realistic goals first, such as… I don’t know, a more fulfilling storyline?
Maybe Yusry should hire me as special consultant for Cicak-man 2 
Not to say there weren’t good things. Some parts were absolutely hilarious and I LOL-ed in the cinema. But many parts were quite lame, and could have been so much better! So much wasted time and talent.
Haiya since it’s not going to run for long now, plus it made all the money it could make when it first opened, Yusry and gang are laughing all the way to the bank now. So I’m not going to write anymore la.
Don’t want to waste my talent 
a funny thing happened
So it was 01/01/07 and I hung out with KY and Kerol at Subang. We were at Subang Parade, where we bought a pair of Teva slippers each. I am still wondering how I managed to psyche myself into buying a pair of slippers that I don’t quite need, but one thing about the slippers — they are damn bloody comfy!
Then we ended up at Carrefour Subang, and (naturally) ended up at Starbucks. A girl brought our drinks over and she looked at KY and went, “are you the blogger who always blogs about food?” (omg KY so femes!!!)
Then she turned to me and asked, “you are Suan right? I couldn’t recognise you, you look slimmer in real life!”
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAH!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks Pin Pin, you made my year already 
see ya at the other side, saddam!
Link.
Your monkey friend’s gonna join ya! Happy or not??