[CMV] BattlePage Extra Edition

This is a sequel to the Ultra Edition [blogged here] and this time it still features some very awesome stuff in this short 3 minute video. But there’s something slightly different this time, which is that there is a non-BattlePage member who’s one of the combo makers in this video.

The combo makers this time are Nino (from Phoenix-Force), ALEXS and Q.Zero. Those who have been watching recent CMVs all over the world will probably have heard of their names. Definitely a strong crew at work here, and indeed they produce some nice set-ups to KOF2002. Kinda refreshing to see some nice set-ups, which isn’t easy considering how many KOF2002 videos are already out there.

Editing wise, it’s not super fanciful but rather it’s more of a simple and clean one. I guess it’s partly due to the fact that this CMV is supposedly finished in like 3 days cos the video editor, Q.Zero, is undergoing National Service (Korea has it too don’t they?) and only has a few days of break in between (yeah can imagine). Yeah, good job by him I guess.

For KOF2002 fans, this CMV is gonna be nice and entertaining. Otherwise just watch it for the fun of it, hopefully you’ll learn something new about the game. =P

Ok, below I’ll put some file information and some links to grab this nice, short combo video. Also got a Youtube video for those who are lazy… Lol.

File information:
File format: WMV
File size: 69.9mb
Duration: 3 minutes 17 seconds
Resolution: 304 * 224

Download links:
1) Rapidshare
2) Megaupload
3) Zshare (2 parts): 1 | 2

Youtube version:

Outing on DDay

Fancy an outing with jc friends on the day of results release? Well, me and friends just achieved that today. The sweetness of ice cream @ Swensens (1 for 1 ice cream, so still -can eat-) perhaps helped to dampen the shock from the results checking. Then again, I wasn’t all that shocked lah, though I admit even a D+ for a 3mc module is damn pain.

Well, what that means is gotta get slightly better SAPs from now on to pull it back up. It’s no wonder one must try to shun from grades like these as far as possible. Well at least I passed my most dreaded module, which is what I really hoped for throughout the semester. Guess I can’t complain too much about the lousy grade =P

Shouldn’t talk too much about grades and results, since it’s going to be somewhat depressing (to some extent) for most people. Haha, anyway after having a nice dessert, we went bowling though technically only 2 of us bowled. Heh, I didn’t feel like bowling so just be a spectator lor. Been years since I last bowled (real bowling, not the Wii version).

Not knowing where to go after a quick 2 games, in the end I suggested going to the food court to get a nice place to sit before the evening crowd (aka dinner goers) start swamping the place. Turns out to be a rather good decision since it got somewhat crowded later in the evening though there were still empty seats available. Getting to choose seats is still better lah. =P Did have some random talk while waiting for a more appropriate time to have dinner and I guess it’s still nice having such gatherings and talk once in a while. Perhaps it did help to distract us from thinking about the results, which probably some of us were/are doing after we went our ways back home. Haha, it’s only human to ponder a bit over it I guess.

In other stuff, I played this game intro-ed by Dom. Haha, added it to my records page for fun. Reaching 45 really took a lot of patience and some determination. Do let me know if you break it, and remember to take a screenshot!

To all who have gotten their results, rejoice if you did as you aimed for or better still, better than expectations. Do not despair if you fell a little short, there are still semesters ahead to undo the damage done. =)

p.s. a break from reviews/video sharing wor! Well, it’ll be back starting tmr. Again.

Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Rating: PG
Running time: 122 minutes
Opens: 22 May 2008, Now Showing

Some info:
1) Wiki Article
2) IMDB Profile
3) MovieMistakes Profile
4) Official Site (English)

Another much anticipated sequel, with the last movie being almost 2 decades ago. Admittedly, I can’t remember much of what I’ve watched in the older movies, nor did I catch channel 5’s screening of the prequels recently. Lol. But I guess that doesn’t really matter. This movie is an adventure of its own, with the Indiana Jones touch (I can remember that much, I *think* =P).

Well, the main storyline and plot is summarised on Wiki so I won’t go much into introducing what the movie is about this time round. As I can’t exactly remember how the prequels are liao, judging this movie alone makes me think that much effort was put into this movie in order to continue the success of this iconic character.

This movie packs a lot of action, but it isn’t the martial arts skills type. I guess the longest sequence would be in the jungle where they had the vehicle chase. Quite a long time was spent on that part, and indeed it’s quite exciting in some sense. Other action scenes were in general not too exaggerated except for the “spectacular” aiming of Soviet soldiers, though sometimes it looked a bit not like modern films would offer (which is kinda the idea of keeping the original Indiana Jones style I guess…).

Now to comment on some “mistakes” and things that don’t seem right (to me). As usual, MovieMistakes does a crazily amazing job in spotting mistakes. Powerful…
1) Most easily seen is that after Indiana and gang gets all soaked and drenched in one scene, very soon after their clothes are all dry and stuff, which is quite a common mistake in movies lah.
2) If the skull is needed to enter the final chamber, how was it stolen in the first place? Interesting…
3) At the beginning, when Indiana was made to find the right crate in the huge US military warehouse, he used gunpowder to find the general direction. While each of the powder is small in mass, to be affected some distance away from the exact location, I would expect all the soldiers’ guns etc to be somewhat significantly affected when all of them were in close proximity. Apparently the movie portrayed only those like who were like several cm away from it were affected. Ah wells.
4) Dun wan to say more liao. A lot more good stuff on MovieMistakes (see above for link).

A good mixture of action and funny scenes. Nice adventure too. My take: 7/10. Go watch it =D

Chocolate

Rating: NC-16 (Violence)
Running time: 93 minutes
Opens: 15 May 2008, Now Showing

Some info:
1) Wiki
2) IMDB Profile
3) Official Site (Thai with English menu names)

Another thai martial arts film, like those by Tony Jaa, but this time it’s a young gal (though she’s in fact older than me) instead. As you might have guessed, the story isn’t very much, though I think they tried to improve liao (based on what I can remember for Tom Yum Goong). At least the starting looks as though they were trying to lay the foundation works for a proper story but in the end it still becomes very much a “go to place A, show off ur leet martial skills, go to next place. repeat until final boss cleared”.

In fact, the wiki article has more or less summarised the story, just that the production team put in more effort to show the scenarios of the first 3 paragraphs of the wiki summary. Yeah, so you can expect next to 0 action packed goodness during the beginning.

Yup, so when the lead star finally goes around collecting back her mom’s money from various shady people, she gets into fights and more fights, until she meets the boss. Haha, yeah now you can see a lot of nice choreographed action scenes.

Well, the highlight of the show is seeing this gal doing all those stunts and nice action sequences, and of course you’ll get a good share of it in this hour and half movie. It’s quite evident that while filming to finish 1 area of battles, they need many, many takes, perhaps every short, short sequence is a take itself. At least the continuity seems pretty good though on many occasions I could tell it’s actually continued from a different take. Oh well, some of those are really gonna be hard to get it in 1 take, so requiring editing for continuity isn’t much of a surprise. After all, during the early parts of the credits, we get to see some behind the scenes mishaps and accidents + injuries. Those look really painful though. Being stuntmen for this show is no joke.

Oh yah, during the early parts of the show, there’s many scenes of Tony Jaa’s movies being shown as the main lead is viewing such films to learn more martial arts moves or something. Haha, what a way to advertise huh. =X Hmm, and also during the parts in which they speak English, it really took me quite some effort to get what they were talking without focusing too much on the subtitles, and some parts don’t even have subtitles cos I think they presume it’s clear enough to do without the English subs. Bleah.

The nice action scenes make up for the less than average plot. My take: 6/10

Hatenkou Yugi

Japanese title: 破天荒遊戯
Number of episodes: 10

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

Talk about a short series huh. 10 episodes is kinda short, especially considering there’s 10 volumes of manga, according to the wiki article. Being a series with so few episodes, it’s not hard to imagine it doesn’t cover very much, and that between episodes, there seems to be some jump in events, as though they were “episodic”.

However, at least when it comes to the background info/stories of the characters, they don’t really jump between episodes, and in fact gradually reveal more. It was starting to get somewhat a little better towards the middle to 2nd half of the series, but as you can expect, the story ends rather abruptly and weirdly. And of course, there are many (actually a few) things left unexplained.

By briefly reading through the wiki article which contains some manga information as well, it seems that the anime series hasn’t really covered a lot since there are (impt?) characters who haven’t appeared yet. I wonder if there’ll be a season 2 or something, to continue the story where this 10 episode series ended. Shrugs. If there’s a 2nd season I might consider taking a look at how things develop. Otherwise, these 10 eps don’t really serve very much of a purpose =X