K-pop Girl groups ~ My Favourite for 2012

Gangnam Style seems to conquer the world in 2012 but when it comes to K-pop, my favourite has to be the girl groups. So it's time for me to look back and see which are some of the best songs of 2012 by them. Here I present you my top 6 favourite K-pop girl groups of 2012 based on their songs. Let the countdown begins.

6) Girls' Generation ~ All My Love Is For You

Girls' Generation is a popular girl group which I believe need no introduction. The nine-members group; Jessica, Hyoyeon, Sunny, Yuri, Sooyoung, Taeyeon, Tiffany, Seohyun and Yoona; has been very successful worldwide that they had been dubbed as South Korea's national group. I love their songs like Gee, Oh! and Hoot, but I found myself a bit less interested in their newer songs like Mr. Taxi and Paparazzi. But their 2012 Japanese song, All My Love Is For You, had caught my attention. It's a powerful and wonderful song, almost like a ballad to me, that captured my heart from the very first time I listened to it. With a song like this, Girls' Generation managed to prove that they are not just relying on catchy pop tracks and dance moves but also on their vocal talent to captivate fans.

Watch All My Love Is For You

5) KARA ~ Pandora and Electric Boy

KARA, which composed of Gyuri, Seungyeon, Nicole, Goo Hara and Jiyoung, is very popular in Japan, so I guess that is why they had been very active in Japan releasing a studio album, two singles and one compilation album there. Electric Boy, one of the single released in Japan, had been my favourite Japanese song by them. It's an upbeat song and the music video retained their cute and girly image just like in their Step music video, which happens to be my favourite KARA song so far. On the other hand, their Korean effort Pandora featured a more mature image of them. It sounded less cheerful compared to Electric Boy but it still gives you an upbeat tempo that will keep you singing along in no time.

Watch Pandora
Watch Electric Boy

Final Fantasy X ~ review

I was a little late in discovering the amazing world of Final Fantasy video game series as I was only introduced to Final Fantasy VIII during my teenage years. But it was Final Fantasy X that became the first game in the Final Fantasy series that I had completed playing. To finally finish a game that I had only managed to adore from afar before, it was truly a satisfying feeling.

Final Fantasy X is a role-playing video game by then Squaresoft (now known as Square Enix) released in 2001 for the PlayStation 2. It was the first game in the series to introduced voice-acting. The game was a critical and commercial success and had sold millions worldwide, which then lead Square to release the first direct-sequel in the series, Final Fantasy X-2.

Final Fantasy X (FFX) is set in a troubled world called Spira, and follows the main protaganist, Tidus, as he became one of the guardian to a summoner, Yuna, as the group traveled Spira on a pilgrimage to obtained aeons and in the end to destroy Sin, a montrous creature that had been creating chaos across Spira. The group also consists of other iconic characters which are Wakka, Lulu, Kimahri, Auron and Rikku.

Let's start dissecting FFX with its plot. Story-wise, FFX has a very complex story that are quite hard to follow or understand if you do not really paying attention to what the characters are saying during the cutscenes or gameplay. But that not to say that the story is bad, in fact it was rich, entertaining and satisfying. Since the plot deals with the theme of death and a glimmer of hope, the atmosphere of the story are quite gloomy and sad,  which you can immediately feel from the start of the game at the start menu. But it's not melodramatic all the way to the end. To be fair, there are some cheerful moments throughout the game and some pretty good action cutscenes but overall, it is a game with a sad story.

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D ~ review

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D is a horror film released on 26th October 2012 in the US and some other markets like Malaysia. It is a sequel to the 2006 video-game adaptation horror film, Silent Hill and loosely based on the video game, Silent Hill 3. It is directed by Michael J. Bassett and starred Adelaide Clemens, Kit Harington, Carrie-Anne Moss, Sean Bean, Radha Mitchell, Deborah Kara Unger and Malcolm McDowell.

This review is spoiler-free so you do not need to worry if you haven't watch the film yet. ;-)

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D is by no means a better film than its predecessor. There are a lot of room for improvement but it does have a few things that I like. Let's start with the plot. While it is not strong, the plot for this movie is still quite good and most importantly, easy to understand. That is a huge success in itself because Silent Hill video games can have quite a confusing plot with different layer of interpretation which can be hard to be translated onto the silver screen. But with easy explanation from key characters in the film, viewers especially those who are not fans of the video games can find the plot not so confusing.

The acting, while there are no stand-outs, they are not bad either. Adelaide Clemens did a good job as Heather Mason and Kit Harington was quite good too as Vincent. Sean Bean, needles to say, is a great actor but viewers won't be seeing much of him since his character were not featured much in the plot. I love Radha Mitchell so seeing her in the movie although just as a cameo, was a good treat for me, and it also brings back memories of the first movie. But some characters were underused like the main villain Claudia Wolf (played by Carrie-Anne Moss) and Douglas Cartland (played by Martin Donovan).

The special effects, for the most part, were spectacular, but I must say that it was a bit inconsistent. There are some effects which I thought were quite poorly executed and should not be included in the movie. But others like the effects during the transition from the fog world to the Otherworld were great. As for the 3D effects, since I did not watch the movie in 3D, there was not much to say about it.

The soundtrack is the best part of the movie. I think it was quite the same or maybe a rework version with the one from the video games (I would guess Silent Hill 3), but I'm not quite sure. The soundtrack brings out the creepiness and mysterious side of Silent Hill which I think are much needed by this movie. I also noted that the timing for the music was almost perfect. There's a scene in the film when the soundtrack suddenly stopped playing and I thought to myself that it was the perfect silence for the scene.

I was quite disappointed though when the movie became more action-oriented at the end. I feel like it could have been handled differently but still give viewers the tormented and twisted Silent Hill that it is known for. The heavy-action element was irrelevant and somewhat takes away the psychological horror Silent Hill is all about. 

Although Silent Hill: Revelation 3D is not prefect, it is still a good effort in bringing the world of Silent Hill to the mainstream audience. I also feel like the franchise could still grow, and interestingly enough, the end of the movie also hinted to not just one, but two possible plot that the next movie could take. Hopefully, this movie will not be the last of the franchise in movieland.

Images from Wikipedia and the movie official website.

K (anime) ~ Episode 1 and Episode 2 review

Okay, so I had watched episode 1 and 2 of the new anime, K, that had started airing on Animax Asia only last week, and here what I think about it.

In my opinion, episode 1 started really strong with viewers already thrown into interesting fight scenes early on. But story-wise, it is still very confusing what the commotion was all about. But that's normal, I guess, for episode 1 of an anime, or any TV series. Some cool characters were introduced, like Mikoto Suō and Anna Kushina, but my favourite has to be the main character of the show, Yashiro Isana. I didn't know he would be the main character since the promo for the anime seems to show that he would just be a supporting character. But I'm glad that he is, because Yashiro is such an interesting and mysterious character.

The visual for the anime is rather unique, mostly because of the colour that the studio use for the anime. It didn't use normal colouring instead it seems to only utilise a few major colour like blue and red to make up most of the scenes. But personally, it didn't distract me while I'm watching, in fact I think it helps K to stand out from the other anime series. The camera techniques and angles are good and quite high-standard too, like when the camera follows a character while he was on a skateboard or when the camera zoom in  through a glass marble when a character was looking through it. These techniques help K looks "expensive".

Episode 2 focused on another interesting character known as Kurō Yatogami, as he located Yashiro at his school after he initially managed to be captured by him. This episode also featured more humour and shows that K is not all action and serious. I was excited although a bit surprised at first when they included a lot of jokes in this episode, as I think the tone seemed quite different that what was previously set by episode 1. Nevertheless, I'm happy with it, and I think this will be the tone (a mixture of action and humour) that will be set throughout the series.

I still don't understand the whole concept of the world that K was set in. Viewers did see some powers that a few of these characters had in these 2 episodes but nothing were explained regarding it. Homura clan seems to be like a group of organized thugs that are well-known and feared by the townsfolk while Scepter 4 looks like the "police force" of the city. And something about Ashinaka High School, the school that Yashiro attended, that seemed special and somewhat mysterious. I mean, it's located entirely on an island and is isolated from the city. Would the school be explored more in future episodes?

So that's what I think about the anime K, based on the first 2 episodes. Did you watch the anime? If you do, what do you think about it? And if you don't, you can watch it on Animax Asia every Friday at 1:35 am for Animax Same Day Telecast program, or watch the encore telecast at 6:30 pm. K will also has its repeat on Saturday at 11:30 pm with the previous week's episode aired before that.

Images from K official website.

Upside Down trailer ~ A unique romance between two worlds

The first time I ever heard or saw anything about this movie was when I saw the poster in one of the local cinema. The poster looked unique and it piqued my interest to know more about the movie. But sadly, I never heard any news on TV about this movie, not even in the entertainment channels. The story looks interesting, so how come there are no promotion for it? Well, if there are, perhaps I'm the one who missed the advertising.

Anyway, I'm excited and planning to watch it once it come out here in Malaysia. But when will it come out? I heard that it already released or will be released soon in several territories. The poster that I saw in the local cinema only stated 'Coming Soon', so I'm not sure when is that.

Some background about the movie; Upside Down is a science fiction-romantic film starring Jim Sturgess and Kirsten Dunst. It tells a story about a man who falls in love with a girl in an alternate world which are directly above his own world. He need to fight against the worlds in order to be with her as the residents from both worlds are not allowed to be in contact with each other. You can see what's the movie is about in the trailer above, I think the trailer shows too much. But I'm still excited about the movie, hopefully it will be released soon.

You can also watched the trailer here. Enjoy!