[CMV] FMCU Volume 3

Yeap, another CMV-related post. FMCU is actually (yet) another group (or team, or whatever you want to call it) comprising of many Chinese (from China mainly or all of them). Anyway I thought this volume is pretty nicely done, so just sharing it with you guys, who actually bother with stuffz like these. Haha.

First I’ll comment on the editing. Although I think sxp_rain is a somewhat new to this editing scene, the “imitation” of Sry_Jacky’s earlier style of editing is rather nicely done. Yup, Sry_Jacky has inspired many people. Yeah, so you can expect the editing to be somewhat smooth and sleek, though the style is no longer refreshing to me. Heh, I’m so critical of people’s edit when I cmi myself. Hohum.

Now for the more important part (imo for CMVs), the combos of course! Being a video from a vast number of members, the average quality of the combos in there is definitely quite good. A few set-ups in 2002 are kinda new, though the outcome of the combo may not necessarily be that ground-breaking. Haha. As for the 2000 combos, it’s sure as hell messy, with the utilisation of many bugs here, there, everywhere. People who are new to the game will probably lack appreciation for it (or so I think), likewise for those who are not so into combos. Haha.

Overall, a nice video worth a 2nd watch, at least for me, to get a good look at the combos in the video. Maybe I could learn a thing or two, and perhaps execute some form of imitation =P

File info:
File size: 248MB
Format: AVI
Duration: 14 minutes 48 seconds
Resolution: 608 * 448, 60 FPS

Download links:
1) 纳米盘 (2 parts) - 1 | 2 (should be no expiry)
2) QQMail - 1 (retrieval code is fa357bf2) [expires in some 10 days. see entry date]
3) more to come (if any)

江山美人

English title: An Empress and the Warriors

Rating: PG (Some battle scenes)
Running time: 95 minutes
Opens: 27 March 2008, Now Showing

Some info:
1) IMDB profile
2) Official Site (Can choose between Simp/Trad Chinese and English)

Actually was a little curious how Kelly Chan will act in a show like this. For Donnie Yen, the action/stunts part probably won’t be much of a problem for him since he’s used to movies like this, though the armour may be a little heavy.

Sadly, there’s no wiki article (at least not in English) available, so you can’t really see a summary of the storyline. Haha. Anyway, Donnie plays Kelly’s right-hand general after her father (the king) died. Kelly is a princess (of 燕), while Leon is Kelly’s love interest in the end, and is the sole survivor from a group of skilled yet warmonging group of people exterminated by the alliance of 10 kingdoms some years back. The main highlights of the show would be the various trials Kelly has to face in leading/saving her kingdom, and also the love interest problem between the 3 of them, which turns out to be not of a triangle later in the movie. If I write more details, I might as well just go open a wiki article liaoz. Either u find other sources to find out more, or go watch the movie if u’re that interested. =D

Some parts of the show, imo, were quite badly directed leh, or maybe it’s just the camera angle or something. And I got this weird feeling seeing Leon and Kelly trying to appear lovey-dovey with each other. I don’t know why. Hahaha, maybe their chemistry not really there, or maybe they don’t exude enough of the feelings needed for things like these.

Oh, [spoiler] the ending is that both Donnie and Leon died, leaving Kelly alone, setting a rule that 燕 will not start a war again, and be at peace with the other 9 kingdoms[/spoilers]. Too lazy to type more, shall just throw in some of my observations below.

Some observations (a bit long. paiseh):
1) When Kelly and Leon got stung by the bees and required bandaging, in a few scenes, Kelly’s bandage across from her face switches side, clearly showing the audience how the sequence was filmed. It looked rather glaring and obvious, and I wonder why wouldn’t she have realised the bandage has been put across a different side of her face. Hic
2) The theme song has been played many times, in various arrangements including the vocal version. It’s actually quite nice, but kinda irritating to me with the many, many version. =P
3) Interestingly, a few characters were named somewhat to Louis Cha’s story. 慕容 and 段 as surnames don’t happen to be very common surnames do they? And they happen to cross paths, and both liking the same gal. And the story relates to 大燕国. Hohum. Maybe it’s really a coincidence. =P Even clarence thought it had some kind of relation. Ahahaha
4) As usual, lethal poison chooses how long it lets the victim live after being poisoned. Leon lasted way, way much more than the creator of the poison. Though Leon is a young chap and the creator is a old man, the disparity is rather huge, and the latter is actually quite skilled in making poisons so I would expect that old fogey to have more “resistance” than Leon who is just part of a clan that’s very skilled in martial arts and other stuff.
5) Donnie Yen must have a fight scene that shows off his 身手. At least that’s what I’ve noticed of the recent movies I’ve watched which stars him as one of the lead characters. Haha.
6) Leon’s hot air balloon doesn’t seem like he’ll have control over how the fire burns. Anyway, the english subtitles for the 天灯 turns out to be Zhuge Lantern. While it’s not wrong to say Zhuge used such a thing, but I believe, judging from the storyline which consists of 10 majors states, it’s in an era prior to Zhuge’s time. Wonderful isn’t it? (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong. After all, my chinese history knowledge is quite pathetic).
7) A continuation from the the point above, the english subtitles, while grammatically correct and meaningful, is somewhat different from the Chinese subtitles, which in turn doesn’t show the exact words that the audio seem to project otherwise. So basically, the Chinese subtitles is a little off [with meaning intact], while English subtitles had some paraphrasing (re-phrasing and substitution at parts). Hic. How I manage to read all that? Shrugs.
8) I think some scenes are re-used, with slightly different angle and focus, though it’s meant to be of a different timeframe. Hic.
9) Leon and Kelly’s size must be somewhat similar, since Kelly’s armor could fit Leon nicely in the ending scenes. Haha.

My rating: 6/10. My observations didn’t really affect how I rated this show. Overall, it’s quite ok bah and it’s not bad enough to warrant a 5.5 imo. It has the elements of such a show, though the relationship (romance) portion may seem a little, erm, draggy. Haha.

p.s. I think I might be suffering withdrawal symptoms. I whack so many observations. Hohum.

Karas

Japanese title: 鴉 -KARAS-
Number of episodes: 6

Some info:
1) ANN
2) Wiki
3) Official Site (Japanese)

Though this OVA has only a mere 6 episodes, it sure took long for it to be complete, as least to the consumer market, spanning more than 2 years. Initially there was quite a hype about it but I didn’t take any special note because I knew there’s gonna be a long wait for the series to be completed.

Ah well, now that it’s complete, no harm taking a look at this series and finding out why there’s been so much talk about it. Just the opening sequence itself I could already feel that the animation is gonna be pretty nice and good. There’s a mix of CG with your usual anime animation, but sometimes I do note that there’s both CG and 2D cartoonish drawings together in 1 scene which makes it look kinda weird at times. Hehz. Aside from having nice graphics, the series seem to like slow-motion effect quite a bit, though I admit sometimes it’s quite nicely done to suit the show. Haha.

As for the storyline, the Wiki article pretty much summarises what happens. But of course watching the OVA itself probably isn’t as straight-forward (or maybe because I was multi-tasking =P) as the text. Nonetheless, understanding the story isn’t going to be a problem either way, so no worries. Though people who don’t like fantasy + sci-fi should really stay away from this one since you guys aren’t gonna like it (or so I think).

Oh 1 thing to note, there’s quite a bit of explicit animated violence shown but of course it isn’t much to me lah. Lol. Thought I’d just let you know in case you detest such things. =)

Well, I wouldn’t say it’s a fun (cos it’s not comedy etc…) watch, but definitely entertaining enough to keep you watching through this short series. I think many anime fans would already have watched this. Hehz.

Another Entry For Ranting

Haha, the title says it all. Don’t bother continue reading if you don’t like to see this type of entry. Simple as that right? Heh. Just need to vent a little bit here to ease some built up stress. Unfortunately, this won’t help lessen the fatigue I have right now, and it’s not even due to chiong-ing of drama/anime (though my posts seem to suggest otherwise).

Yeah, haven’t really been blogging properly for some days now. All those posts were just drafts waiting to be published on the site, so yah. At the start of the week, or rather during the long weekend, I thought that this week would be quite easy to manage and pull through, but apparently I was so wrong. Hehz. First up, I procrastinated too much for my short talk preparation and really found it to actually be much more time-consuming than expected, even though the short talk is a mere 3 minute one. At least it ended up not as bad as I was prepared to be, though I was still quite nervous while talking in front of the class. Blehx.

Second, there’s yet another java assignment that came out on tuesday. Was initially due tonight, but luckily the deadline has been extended. Why do I say luckily? Cos I’m still having problems in getting it to work properly. Sigh. But anyway, gotta thank all those who painstakingly helped me, though I still very chui lah. I really appreciate all your help!!! =) Hmm, assignment 5 is out liao. Bahbah.

Next up, there’s still 2100 to settle. Assignment also came out on Monday, and due on April’s Fool. Sigh, more work to clear, but I hope that one is less daunting. Blehx. MIPS isn’t exactly very fun. Of course the usual weekend workload shouldn’t be factored in when I’m trying to whine.

On to other stuff. Had the third and last econs lecturer giving the first of her 4 lectures on tuesday. I must say while she tries her best to explain the concepts (since Macro is like supposed to be harder), she’s actually quite boring, or maybe the fact that the previous lecturer was a super expressive and emotional lecturer that it kinda make this lecturer look really dull and boring. Then again, I could feel that the people in the LT were generally not so pleased with this lecturer. Haha. And my cs2301 just had to decide that the next 2 weeks be without a lecture, making me super tempted to skip econs as well. Hahahaha. I so bad siah. Ken will be all alone for the lecture… Ahahaha.

Aiyah lazy to blog le. Don’t know why I find it harder to blog such type of entries than reviewing a show/movie. Sighx

p.s. for those who think I chiong shows like crazy, the answer is yes and no. Yes, I do so during the holidays. And no, I’m not doing it now (at least I don’t consider it chiong).

off-topic: i want to watch ProDai SP~~

edit: finished java assignment! many thanks to jon and dom!!! order of appearance need not signify order of importance, though it might. =P

Yukan Club

Japanese title: 有閑倶楽部
Info @ D-Addicts Wiki
Number of episodes: 10

Looking at the viewership ratings, I thought that this show would be rather good, but somehow it seems to fall quite short of my expectations. Perhaps it’s because of KAT-TUN members (2 of them) are in this show, and they are quite a popular group in Japan. But I had the impression that such idols didn’t have that much influence over viewership ratings assuming the show isn’t all that great. Heh, guess I’m quite wrong this time around.

Episodes seem to be rather standalone in nature, so I guess it’s all right to watch them separately without fear of missing out anything. In fact, sometimes certain characters between episodes seem to be able to ignore events that happened in the previous episode, be it emotional rollercoaster or something else. Not very right isn’t it. Heh, and also there are also a few continuity errors as you would find in movies. Yep, I’ve actually managed to spot quite a few. Sigh, minus more points! Though it’s not like I’ll give this a rating anyway.

“Turning impossibilities into possiblities is what Yukan Club is about.” That’s their tagline which appears at least once every episode. Well probably they’ve made me watch through the entire series which seemed to be quite an impossibility intially due to its lacklustre performance. But well, sometimes it’s kinda lame enough to keep me going though I shouldn’t really be indulging myself in such lame things. Lol~

So from the above, I believe you can tell that I’m not recommending to this, but you can see watch it if you want (especially if u’re a KAT-TUN fan). Now on to the next show…~

Hotaru no Hikari

Japanese title: ホタルノヒカリ
Number of episodes: 10

Some info @ D-Addicts Wiki

Finally she (Ayase Haruka) stars in some drama series that’s not sad-based or dark-themed. At least the titles with her as main actress that I’ve watched so far (Tatta Hitotsu no Koi, Byakuyakou, Sekai no Chuushin de, Ai wo Sakebu) centres around something on a sad nature, rather than a light-hearted/comedy one, like this drama series. Of course, I’ve watched her appearances in Hero SP and the Movie, but she’s not the main lead so that doesn’t really count. Haha.

Ok, before I digress further, I really should focus on this drama. Hic. Anyway, this show is about her being a Himono-onna, a dried-up woman. Well, that’s because the way she behaves at home (aka outside office) is rather un-lady-like and stuff, due to her laziness + strange habits. Haha, I guess it’s comparing to the “standard” of the average Japanese lady bah. But anyway I think certain things are kinda exaggerated in the show lah, since it’s really, really quite unbelievable that a person can be that vastly different at office and at home.

So being lazy and all, she hasn’t been in love for a long time, thinking it’s better lazing around at home than being in a relationship. One day, some handsome designer who returns from overseas just kisses her while she dozed off in a shop (inspecting before opening ceremony) and she gets the shock of her life. Funny things happen from there, and what’s worse, her manager moves into the house she’s living in (cos it’s actually owned by the manager’s father and she’s just borrowing it to live in while he is out of the country). So yeah, you can expect quite a number of funny scenes at home with her and her manager. Lols.

Well, the love story isn’t very lovey-dovey though. Haha, what do u expect from a “dried-up woman”? =P The funny things that happen due to that is great entertainment though. Whee. The ending is pretty ok though, and kinda predictable, which is all right lah. Needs to end properly mah, rather than having some kind of weird and abrupt ending that can’t be foreseen. Lols.

From this show, I can see that Ayase Haruka can take up other types of roles well too, which is a good thing. Hehz. Oh yah, the supporting actress of the show is the poor wife-to-be of the victim in Hero the Movie. Ok lah, looks quite chio in the drama and the movie. So if Clarence happens to be reading this entry (I think very unlikely lah), her name is Kuninaka Ryoko. Not a bad actress too, seeing she did actually win a Best Supporting Actress award for her role in this drama series.

Overall, it’s quite a nice and entertaining watch. Maybe there are lessons to be learnt from the show, but I guess it ain’t really applicable to me. =P

The Prince of Tennis: The National Tournament Semifinals

Japanese title: テニスの王子様 全国大会篇 Semifinal
Number of episodes: 6

Some info:
1) ANN
2) Wiki (General info on PoT series itself)
3) Official Site @ TV-Tokyo (Japanese)

This is the sequel OVA to the one I reviewed here. According to the Wiki article, there’ll be a 3rd installment to this OVA, and in fact should have already started, but I don’t seem to be able to find any article on ANN for that, nor do I see it under the upcoming titles in Japan. However, I do see an article set up on AniDB liaoz, so it’s probably quite true, though the dates on Wiki and AniDB don’t seem to match. Haha. Only time will tell which source is more accurate. Heh.

Anyway, this OVA is pretty short, since it’s just versus 1 team, and there’s no “filler” here I guess. Just the competition itself, and perhaps some “history” of the players if necessary, so that viewers can actually can get to know more about the characters (especially Seigaku’s opponents). The level of tennis exhibited by the players seem to go higher and higher till I wonder if anyone in the coming school year (in the anime’s timeline) will be able to undertake the role of understudying their seniors. Lol. Well, as expected, Seigaku won enough games to proceed to the finals, where I’m sure more exciting (read: exaggerating, but somewhat exciting) stuff will be coming up ahead.

It seems that the manga has ended recently, but as you know, I don’t read manga, so I have no idea how much more from here till the end of the manga is left. Hopefully it’ll end rather nicely. Heh.

Ah well, for those who have watched part of (actually most of) the PoT series should probably take a look at this one and see how the story further develops, though I’ve already given the result of this OVA’s lineup. Ah well, can go see how imba the players have become. It’s getting quite insane actually. Haha.

For now, I shall await for the 3rd OVA for the National Tournament. You can probably expect another review at the end of it. Heh. =D