You don't need to have seen the first movie of this hilarious comedy flicks that comes from Hong Kong, China. This movie is definitely quite entertaining, unique and over the top in many senses.

The story is not really important in here. The viewer simply witnesses a shattered family and what their members experience in their everyday life. "I Love Hong Kong 2" introduces us to the old and stubborn television weatherman Kwok Ching who always bitterly criticizes his family members. We get to know his fat and mostly lazy brother who happens to be quite clumsy but simply put very faithful, honest and sympathetic. There are also two daughters. The first one is always surrounded by her chatting, silly and superficial girlfriends and has some problems with her clumsy husband that tries to win her back by making her some crazy surprises, by trying to become a true sex bomb and by taking care of the naive orphan girl they have financially supported and that now comes to visit them in the city. The second daughter is a quite severe young woman that is working as a chef in a chaotic department store and who has a quite chaotic love and hate relationship with one of her employees. There also is a clumsy young son who has fallen in love with a beautiful reporter on television and who tries everything to impress her and therefor makes himself a lot of potential enemies. The movie follows all these different characters and what they are going through. In the end, they all get united again in love and peace face to a fake catastrophe.

The best thing about this movie is that there is not one wasted single of boredom to find. The vivacious flick has a fast paced slapstick humour and leads us from one situation comedy to the next. The movie is mostly about the twisted paths of love, no matter if we see complicated love stories or the difficult relations from father to son or daughter. Thanks to the movie's somewhat childish but extremely charming humour the whole thing never gets too sentimental and reserves quite some laughs. The flick also contains a lot of bits and pieces of what I would describe as a humour that is typical for the Hollywood and Eastern Asian cinema in general. If you like this locally flavoured humorous genre, you may see that this movie doesn't disappoint and can even be cited as a highlight of the last years.

The story setting about a wrong rumour of the end of the world that is published through a corrupted news channel is quite redundant and one of the most silly elements of this film. The suddenly quite philosophical and profound ending of the movie that underlines the importance of the family and its values also feels somewhat put-on and doesn't fit to the rest. The makers of this flick should have let this film be an incredible comedy flick without compromises instead of adding these ordinary elements we have all seen many times before in Western cinema.

Apart of the thin story line and the flawed final scenes, this movie though is an over-the-top entertainment. Fans of Asian comedy movies should not miss it. It's quite similar to the first part though and you must only check out both movies if you really adored the style of the previous flick. If you didn't have the chance to watch the first part, you can go for this one without regrets as they are quite equally great and it only depends on very specific personal tastes to tell which one may be the better choice.

This movie definitely is one of the better crime movies I have seen in the past few years. It's not necessarily the solid but overall not too creative story that makes this movie so great but especially the intriguing characters and the flawless acting. Every actor has its own strong charisma but I definitely must point out the play of Hiroshi Abe. By playing a down to earth and quite smart cop with some familiar issues, his acting feels very honest and natural. It feels as if he would simply be himself instead of playing a character of a movie and that's a very strong point in my humble opinion.

Let's talk a little bit about the story. We witness the death of an old and rich chef on a Japanese enterprise who collapses on the bridge under the sign of two kirins. The old man has been stabbed in a tunnel but instead of looking for help, he desperately tried to make it to the kirin statues. It turns soon out that he has been robbed out prior to his death. The robber is identified by the police after having cold his girlfriend and tries to flee. After a short fight, he gets hit by a truck and falls in a coma. Even though evidences seem to make clear that the unconscious thief has killed the old man, the main investigator and his assistant follow different options. They soon find out that the old man's family didn't know much about him. What did the old man do in different sections of Tokyo during the afternoons instead of being in his bureau or his factories? This questions is the key to a well developed answer in a story with a few intriguing turns even though one can predict the movie's ending after about two third of its running time.

The story is solid but it's really the emotional acting that makes this flick stand out. Without the realistic play of main and supporting actors, this movie would have only been solid and got two points less from me. The fact that this movie is very human and focuses on emotional relationships by touching topics such as betrayal and forgiveness, despair and hope as well as love and different family issues adds a lot of depth to the film. The movie is in fact at least as close to a drama as it is to a classic crime flick. The final sequences even put tears in my eyes and felt very philosophical and positive about life. This is the kind of movie that has a deeper message to transmit and that is not only about entertainment.

Anybody who likes this kind of emotional and philosophical depth in crime movies should definitely pick up this film. It's way better than all those dark and repetitive Scandinavian crime movies that begin to bore me to death and also a lot better than German crime movies that only play with stereotypes and frequently criticize the society by having a boring touch of morality. This movie feels light and profound at the same time. I wish more crime flicks of that kind would be created and all those Swedish or German directors and screenplay writers should get a fresh inspiration from this very natural movie.

As a big fan of current Korean cinema and even more of the amazing actor Choi Min Sik as well as of Mafia and Yakuza movies in general, I was really looking forward to watch this movie. But in the end it all came very different...

The only positive thing about the movie is the unique acting of Choi Min Sik. He proves that he doesn't only perfectly incarnates twisted and brutal characters but also the one he plays in here. We talk about a corrupt customs official who works at the port of Busan who finds a haul of drugs and begins to team up with a vicious gangster. The character doesn't seem to be clever at all at first sight. He has no experiences whatsoever, is overtly arrogant and doesn't stop talking nonsense. But thanks to a lot of luck as well as to a couple of good deals and relations, he survives by using his partner, his enemies and even the police for his own issues. Choi Min Sik incarnates the character with a lot of humour. On the other side, it's quite hard to believe that this kind of clumsy character has gone so far in organized crime and the movie overall doesn't feel realistic enough.

The movie itself is a biopic with many lengths and a load of more or less important characters. We assist to many meetings at many different places with many different people that are sometimes redundant and add nothing to the story line. Apart of following the career of the main character, there is no truly addicting story that would create an acceptable setting. The dialogues are sometimes quite poor, there is not much tension in the movie and the few action scenes are good but quite rare to find. This movie never gets close to all those big movies about organized crimes such as The Godfather, Once Upon A Time In America, Takashi Miike's Family and so on.

In the end, this movie may only be worth a watch for fans of Choi Min Sik who makes this overlong biopic at least watchable. On the other side, he can't save this film from its numerous flaws and lengths. The expectations for this film were quite high but the final result is more than disappointing.

Hello dear readers of my blog!

I just wanted to share some impressions of the Japan Day in Düsseldorf, Germany with you which I've attended on June 2nd of the year 2012. The closing ceremony includes the biggest Japanese fireworks in the world out of the country. It lasted for twenty-five minutes and was shown on television, too. I've included my favourite moments.

This time, the fireworks' topic was "200 years of Grimm's Märchen". You can see a connection between German and Japanese culture in the fireworks. During the whole day, several thousands of visitiors could take a look on Japanese martial arts celebrations, watch Japanese bands live, get fan stuff of mangas and more, buy traditional Japanese clothes, taste a high number of dishes from Nippon and much more.  

The reason for this annual celebration is the fact that a big Japanese community lives in Düsseldorf and its surroundings. This community integrated very well, is an important factor of our local economy and brought some intriguing bits and pieces of their culture to our country.

I included some Japanese music to support the images. Have fun with this!

Impressionen des Abschiedsfeuerwerks des Japan-Tages vom 2. Juni 2012 in Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Deutschland.

Impressions of the closing ceremony of the Japan Day on June 2nd of the year 2012 including the biggest Japanese fireworks out of Japan in Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

Quelques impressions de la cérémonie de fermeture de la journée du Japon du 2 juin 2012 avec les plus grands feux d'artifice japonais à l'extérieur du Japon à Düsseldorf, Rhénanie-du-Nord-Westphalie, Allemagne.

Musik / Music / Musique:

Dir En Grey - The Violence And The Darkness Of The Burning Heat Entwines In My Heart / 激しさと、この胸の中で絡み付いた灼熱の闇 (2009)

Loudness / ラウドネス - Butterfly / 魔性の女 (1984)

X Japan - Art Of Life (1993)

D'espairsRay - Tainted World (2005)

Mucc / ムック - Libra / リブラ (2007)

Sound Horizon - The Princess Who Sleeps In The Tower Of Roses / 薔薇の塔で眠る姫君 (2010)

Ningen-Isu / 人間椅子 - The Mountains Of Madness / 狂気山脈 (1992)