Toxic_Sausage Reviews

Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior (2003)

Hollywood, watch and learn

[8/10 · 14 February 2005]

Being a martial artist I was very impressed with the fighting in this movie. But what I really enjoyed was the cinematography of the movie, especially in the fight scenes. The grit and brutality is almost unmatched. It's nice to see the good guy get punched and kicked too! I won't go into into detail about the actual fighting except for the fact that they were better and more enjoyable than the heavy-editing and CG that Hollywood thinks is the way fight scenes should be. There was some real contact in this movie...

What I liked about Tony Jaa over Jacke Chan was the lack of the slap-stick fighting which to me as about is as played out as the "matrix" style garbage that we see all time. Jaa is the real deal.

Is this movie perfect? No, but it's better than most martial arts movies as of late. The story is good enough to support this soon-to-be cult classic and it's a nice take away from the color-dramas like "House Of Flying Daggers" and "Hero." It's too bad that once "hollywood" got their hands on it they changed the music and sound effects to totally butcher it from the original... See the original if you can...

Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003)

An insult to the TV series

[1/10 · 2 May 2004]

This is a nice example of the garbage that comes out of Hollywood. I remember the the TV show from the 70's and to see it become an MTV video for the big screen is a shame. This almost as bad as the hacking of "Starsky & Hutch," another great series.

To still insist they fight as if the girls were in "The Matrix" is old and boring. That whole scene in the beginning when they drove off the dam into a helicopter was pathetic. There is no integrity in this film because it is not believable at any point...

Don't waste your time...

2 out of 10

Vanishing Son (1994 TV Movie)

The Best Martial Arts TV

[9/10 · 26 March 2004]

There have been many TV shows based on martial arts action. Most, if not all, do not last. As a kung fu enthusiast I loved Vanishing Son 1,2 & 3. Good story with some killer kung fu with no CG or obvious camera tricks. Too bad it is inrcedibly hard to find. I have it on tape, thank the Lord for that! It was a nice platform for the Noxema Girl,Rebecca Gayhart, to make a nice leap into acting.

Russel Wong has been around for a while and took another stab at martial arts TV with the short lived "Black Sash." Needless to say it was terrible. Also, Marcus Chong AKA Tank from the first Matrix was a big part of Vanishing son also...

The Passion of the Christ (2004)

Weight Of The World

[10/10 · 6 March 2004]

I just saw this movie for the second time. It was no less powerful this time around. After reading the gospels again this movie makes it clear why Christians believe in Jesus Christ. Even "sort of" Christians will become rooted after seeing this.

I have two knocks on this film. First, I wish the music had more of a feel of the time to give it more of a feel of the time of Christ. I felt it was a little too new age in sound.

The second was I really wanted to feel the significance of Jesus being the son of God. They show him coming back and that was it. Maybe another 20 minutes of the resurrection would make it come full circle.

Charlie's Angels (2000)

Pure Garbage

[2/10 · 7 February 2004]

The Matrix has spawned the most imitated and copied special effects in history that this movie could've been the sequel...and that's not saying much. The fight sequences we're so fake I had lost my will to give it a shot. As a martial artist, I was insulted by the "Hollywood training" the actresses received. They looked terrible. Outside of the action, well, that's all there was...no story. Jacqueline Smith...you we're the best!

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Better And Worse...

[5/10 · 8 November 2003]

The movie was better and worse than Reloaded but neither of the two comes close to the first. The battle of Zion was actually okay because we knew what it was about, we knew why they were fighting.

The most annoying thing, outside of the fact the Neo has the powers of Superman and a Jedi, the trilogy did not ask the very question is was asking, WHAT WAS THE MATRIX? That's why the first one was so awesome. It had a mystery that wasn't presented to you without explanation. Reloaded and Revolutions were presented to you like a bad used car salesman trying to sell you old muffins with a really cool neon sign.

During the last twenty minutes I found myself shaking my head a lot. It went off the deep end and I found myself asking if this was the same movie as the first. No, it wasn't. Who would of thought that Thomas A. Anderson, the poor character who just wanted a phone call, would negotiate the fate of the human race by talking to a giant mechanical sea urchin made of thousands sentinels?

Why? you already know why?

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

What's the point?

[16 October 2003]

All I have to say is that this movie was a disappointment on the pure and simple fact that there was so many different tangents thrown at you it was irritating. After a while I was no longer asking why? I was asking myself what for?

The thing with Neo, or lack of, really killed this movie. With him flying around like superman as a dull witness to the rest of the movie made me ill and felt this movie had lost it's magic from the first one.

What really made the action a bore is what's the point of a good fight if nobody can lose? It's like a Kung Fu movie with no reason for fighting, they just do. And does everyone in a digital world fight in the style of kung fu? I hope not, that would make Mortal Kombat the most diverse fighting platform in history...

And the rave party...no comment!

The Debut (2000)

Filipinos On Film

[28 September 2003]

I must say I did enjoy this movie. Not so much that it had Filipinos such as myself in it , but more because it was about Filipino youth growing up here in the USA dealing with their own ideas vs their parents. Why the medical field all the time?

Yes, it did generalize the different types of Filipinos that I come across but the story was deep enough to for even my parents to enjoy. Being born and raised in a normal west suburb of Chicago I did sense the conflict that Ben, the lead, had in this movie. However, I never found it to be a stuggle in life due to my heritage. Also, this movie will give my relatives in the Philippines a view of my world that they never really see.

No, this movie is not Oscar calibur but I give it a thumbs up for effort and conviction...