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Vampire Knight (2008) is the 13-episode anime adaptation of the first six volumes of the Vampire Knight manga. It follows the life of Cross Yuuki, who has no memory of her life past the one of a snowy winter night, where she was saved by a kind vampire, Kuran Kaname, from one who wanted to drink her blood when she was all of five years old. Ten years on, Yuuki is now the adopted daughter of Cross Kaien, chairman of the privately-run Cross Academy and studies there along with her childhood friend, Kiryuu Zero. The students of the Academy are divided into the Day Class and the Night Class. However, the students of the Night Class all have a secret hidden from the Day Class – they are all vampires.

The anime starts off beautifully with a wonderful opening theme song, Futatsu no Kodou to Akai Tsumi (Two Heartbeats and Red Sins) by ON/OFF, which has a gothic-influenced melody that is fitting with the anime’s general feel. The ending theme song, still doll by Wakeshima Kanon has a slower, more haunting melody, but nonetheless befits the theme of vampires in the anime. The anime art, while not as detailed as the manga, is undeniably pretty, making Vampire Knight a visually-pleasing anime to watch. At the same time, the darker themes to the plot scores points with me despite the humorous moments in the anime. To top it all off, Vampire Knight has a stellar voice cast for the main characters.

Unfortunately, the anime did not live up to all of my expectations. Indisputably, the voice cast was brilliant in conveying the emotions of the characters and giving the characters their unique personalities. What let the anime down was the fact that the producers did not follow the storyline set by the manga closely. Certain events were reordered, some existing scenes were altered and there were new scenes added to the anime. Most of these changes disrupted the flow and pacing of the story at some points, rendering the impact of some events to be duller than it should be.

Despite this, I still held on in watching it, still having relatively good faith that the overall feel of the anime would not be altered too badly. However, the final episode of the season came around. Several major scenes were altered, along with the introduction of a new scene that would undoubtedly affect the impact on arguably one of the most significant and monumental manga scenes in the later half of the manga for anime-only fans of Vampire Knight. If the changes in the final episode had not been made, I would’ve given this anime a much higher rating.

That said, my reaction to the anime is likely to be influenced by the fact that I had read the manga already. For viewers who have no knowledge of manga events, Vampire Knight is engaging to watch with its various plot twists and multi-faceted characters. Also, even as secrets are revealed, more questions arise; especially since the last episode ends in what can be considered a cliffhanger.

However, the anime has yet to end. The second season, Vampire Knight Guilty, was being aired in Japan starting on October 7, 2008. Be sure to catch it too, as Vampire Knight becomes more action-packed and darker secrets come to light.

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I have a confession to make: I have never played Final Fantasy VII (FFVII) before.

Now, before all you fans out there start brandishing your Buster Swords or going Chaos on me, please hear me out. While I will not know firsthand how wonderful the original game is and why it still continues to be one of the most successful Final Fantasy games, let this be a review of a game-based movie from a non-gamer's perspective and understand how the other side of the universe thinks of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children.

A friend of mine introduced me to Advent Children, claiming that the graphics were exceptional and the fight scenes brilliantly crafted. When I laid eyes on it, I agreed wholeheartedly, for the first thing that took my breath away was the visuals.

They are stunning. Gorgeous. Absolutely impressive. The amount of realism and detail in the graphics from texture of the ground, the lighting of the various scenes and to the movement of the characters was unprecedented. The battle scenes are indeed spectacular. While they definitely defy all laws of Physics, I say, who cares? To date, I doubt that there has been any other animated feature film that has reached such a high level of CGI mastery as Advent Children. In this aspect, Square Enix has truly outdone itself and raised the bar of CGI excellence.

Plot-wise, however, Advent Children would be fairly confusing to people who have never played FFVII. This sense of confusion sets in right from the beginning. Straight after the opening sequence, there is the line '498 years ago' appearing on screen. 498 years ago? Uh, what? After doing much research, I finally realised that the opening sequence was actually a reanimation of the original FFVII game epilogue that was set 500 years after the end of the game. Still, there is a brief introduction to orientate the viewer about the situation in Gaia (the name of the planet in FFVII) two years ago, when Sephiroth (the game's main villain) tried to destroy the planet, and the present situation in Gaia now. However, it still lacks enough information on the varied characters of the Final Fantasy VII world, which plays a large part in understanding how Advent Children ticks. The explanation of the new disease, Geostigma, that's plaguing Gaia in Advent Children is also confusing without prior knowledge of the alien entity, JENOVA, who is the root of the conflicts in FFVII and Advent Children.

There is also little character development for the most part of the movie, save for the protagonist Cloud Strife (it is Cloud's story after all) and, to a small extent, the new main villain, Kadaj. Most of Cloud's party from the original game make relatively short appearances, while the role of the two most frequently appearing Turks, Reno and Rude, seem to be mainly there for providing comic relief. The other two villains alongside Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz, play secondary roles to Kadaj and have considerably less screen time and dialogue.

However, it is easy to overlook these shortcomings of Advent Children for the movie was mainly meant for fans of the game to enjoy. As mentioned earlier, there's more than enough visual eye-candy (and that's not entirely just a reference to the pretty boy characters in Advent Children) to go around. Another fact is that the movie, staying true to the franchise of Final Fantasy as a whole, has an awesome soundtrack. Many of the music tracks in Advent Children are remixes or piano versions of their original counterparts from the game's original soundtrack, with familiar melodies of Tifa's Theme, Aerith's Theme, Those Who Fight and J-E-N-O-V-A, as well as specially composed music for the movie, such as Cloud Smiles. The music adds to the atmosphere of the different scenes, making your heart race in anticipation or calming you down with its soothing qualities. The piece that caught my attention most, though, was the remix of the iconic One-Winged Angel (one of Sephiroth's themes in FFVII), Advent: One-Winged Angel. The music is a flawless combination of orchestral music with a rock band to create a darker and heavier feel to the original piece that is perfectly fitting of the scene during which it was played Cloud's final showdown with Sephiroth.

For all its realistic graphics, Final Fantasy VII Advent Children is still an animated film. Just as actors bring characters to life in live-action movies, the voice actors bring characters to life in animated shows. Having first watched Advent Children in its original Japanese dub with subtitles, I fell in love with the voice actors. A good majority of the Japanese cast, especially those voicing the main characters, are well-known voice actors in the Japanese anime industry, and their experience clearly translates over to the excellent voicing of Advent Children's various characters. The English cast also exceeded my expectations, mainly because it is quite common for English dubbing (or dubbing of any other language) of anime to go horribly wrong. In this aspect, Square Enix has done well to ensure the audio quality of the movie is not compromised.

With gorgeous graphics, an amazing repertoire of music and a stellar voice cast, Advent Children is definitely a treat for fans of Final Fantasy VII and provides closure to the abrupt ending of the original game.

As for non-gamers? Consider me taken.

The official site of Final Fantasy VII Advent Children can be found here.

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In recent times, we've seen many films come and go that follow the same "inspirational film" formula. From Drumline in 2002 to The Great Debaters just last year, these films all serve to inspire all of us in one way or another, usually by portraying an underdog team/individual overcoming all odds. However, what some people don't realise is that all these films root from this one unique film: Remember the Titans (2000).

Remember the Titans (2000) is a Disney film which was released 8 years ago, yet till this day it is still an extremely popular film. It is set in 1971, a period when racial strife was at its highest. Yet despite this fact, T.C Williams High School in Alexandra Virginia is finally desegregated, causing Whites and Blacks to have to go to the same school and tread the same hallways. Herman Boone (Denzel Washington) is then hired to be the coach of the school's football team, replacing former head coach Bill Yoast (Will Patton) who then takes up the offer of becoming assistant head coach after some hesitation. The newly formed football team is made up of both Blacks and Whites, which then results in many disagreements and even brawls. However, coach Boone brings them to a camp and it is there where, through forceful methods, he finally gets the team to bond together and look past each other's skin colour. However, when they return from camp the best of friends, they then have to deal with racial tensions back in their hometown. Despite all the problems, including coach Boone getting a brick thrown through his house window, the team manages to go through an entire season undefeated and finally clinch the championship.

While the story may seem too good to be true, the film is actually based off the true events that took place at that time. That's probably the best thing about the plot, that the characters and events that occurred are mostly real. This helps the audience relate with the characters, especially at the end of the film as it goes on to explain what happened to each individual after he left the school right before the credits roll. The events themselves make for a great Hollywood storyline as well, even though a large part of it was probably rewritten for Hollywood's sake. However, the very fact that the team could go from fighting among themselves to playing an entire season undefeated is inspiration enough for any average person. You won't find many plot holes in this film either, since it's not all that complicated anyway, but it's a good thing that the plot is easy to keep up with since the audience will be better able to appreciate the film.

The actors themselves do a great job of portraying the characters as well. From Denzel Washington playing the role of a strict coach who never lets up on his team, to Ryan Hurst and Wood Harris playing individual White and Black players on the team who manage to capture the overall problem of racial strife at a personal level. You can really feel the frustration of the players when their forced to play with people of a different race; you'll feel the strong bond of friendship between them once they get over their indifferences; you'll feel their elation by the time the climax of the film is over. . Even the supporting characters such as coach Boone's wife and children do a great job when they're required to do their job. Also, even when there are so many members on the team, their each given their own time to shine, allowing the audience to be able to relate with all of them instead of only one individual. Director Boaz Yakin has done a great job by trying his best to give all characters a decent amount of time onscreen so that the audience relates with the team as a whole.

This was probably one the most popular and successful Disney movies and was the reason why we see so many of these "inspirational sports films", so much so that they might as well have their own genre. The original team of '71 have even set up their own website and the 71' Original Titans Foundation is now a non-profit organisation which is "dedicated to helping High School Students pursue post-secondary education". There, you'll also find an FAQ which addresses the various discrepancies between the film and what really happened all those years ago.

For those of you who haven't watched this film yet, there's absolutely no reason for you to not try and grab a DVD of the show as soon as possible. I'm pretty sure next to anyone will enjoy this film, even families could watch it together if they wanted to. With all that being said, just remember to watch Remember the Titans (2000).

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For some strange reason, sequels have always been notorious for being lousy successors to the original work. Be it video games, movies or even books, plenty of sequels have been known to not live up to the original work. Plenty of sequels share on thing in common: they'd always be inferior to the original piece of work in one way or another and unfortunately, that formula holds true for Ocean's Twelve (2004).

For those who don't know, Ocean's Twelve is the very aptly titled sequel to Ocean's Eleven, a 2001 film (which I reviewed on this site previously) about how eleven men managed to pull of a heist, making all of them millionaires. However, the moment this film begins, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), the man from whom the original eleven stole $160 million from in the previous film, is on the hunt for Ocean's eleven, eventually tracking all of them down one by one. He even goes so far as to detonate a bomb placed in Rusty's (Brad Pitt) car as a warning. In the end, Benedict asks for all $160 million, plus $38 million interest and the eleven come up short by $97 million. Hence, they have no choice but to go back to their old ways, stealing valuable items to pay off their debt, but since their too "hot" to work in the United States, they travel to Europe in order to continue with their dirty work. However, as they are about to steal the world's oldest stock certificate from an eccentric old man, they realise that they've been beaten to the document as it has already been taken by another thief who left them a message through an MP3 player. Soon, they discover that it was the Night fox (Vincent Cassel), a legendary European thief, who beat them to it. After which, the Night fox reveals that he is partially responsible for them being lured to Europe as he then proposes a challenge to the eleven: both them and the Night fox will attempt to steal the Corronation Egg within a week, if the eleven win, the Night fox will pay off their debt to Benedict. Hence, the team accepts the offer since there's no other way for them to raise $7 million in a few weeks, which leads to even more twists and turns in the plot.

While the plot might seem quite interesting, it actually makes for a pretty boring movie on the whole. Most of the movie shows the team discussing rather than putting their plan(s) into action, which was more of what we saw in the first film. In fact, it almost feels as if the action is about to pick up when the team tries to steal the document and you're on the edge of your sea, then when you realise it was all for nothing, you just sink back into your seat, getting bored with it and the rest of the film just doesn't redeem itself. The plot is just sloppy with a lot of plot holes, like how the team suddenly got released when they were arrested by the police, and it just stinks of lazy writing on the whole. Not to mention the climax is practically non existed since there really isn't much to get excited about even in the later parts of the film. By the time the movie ends, you're probably stunned by the fact that the film simply ended the way it did, then you'd probably wonder why you wasted your time with it.

Still, not everything about the film is bad. If there's one redeeming quality about it, it's the acting. The original cast is back from the original film and they put on a great show here even with a broken plot. The ensemble cast still do a great job of portraying a team of professional thiefs who know what they're doing every step of the way. Not to mention the few scenes in which we actually see the team in action are pretty exhilarating, such as one scene in which they need to raise a building to gain a clear shot through a window in the second floor. These scenes are what made the first film so great, it's just unfortunate that the filmmakers and writers failed to see this, or else this could have been a great, if not better movie as compared to the original.

Still, Ocean's Twelve (2004) didn't do that bad in the box office, in fact it was a commercial success in comparison to other films. However, when you compare it to the original Ocean's Eleven, it fell below expectations. If you were a fan of the first film, I'd suggest you don't waste your time on this one, since it really is nowhere near as good as the original film was. Unless you're a real die hard fan and can't wait to see what happens to the team after the original film, this film might be worth a rent.

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Hellboy is not your average superhero. Unlike the others (think Batman, Superman, Spiderman), he actually detests his ‘occupation’ as seen from his wry humour and sarcastic quirks. Yet these are the traits that made him so well-liked when Hellboy first hit the silver-screen in the first installment. Contrary to the first, the sequel - Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) - actually had many fans anticipating excitedly for the official release.

The main prong of the storyline is this – a rogue elven prince openly defies his father’s orders and goes on a crusade to awaken the fearsome, legendary Golden Army to wage war on the human race. Prince Nuada had long held the makeshift truce between the mystical kingdom of his father’s and that of the humans in contempt. He deeply resented the atrocities meted out to the world by humans and their insatiable greed. Hence, he returned from a self-imposed exile to invoke the long-lost mechanical Golden Army, an unstoppable force of destruction. It is up to Hellboy and the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defence (BPRD) to stop his nefarious plans and restore balance to the world.

Other than the main storyline, there exist several sub-plots. The sequel to Hellboy explores romantic relations between some of the major characters. Most significantly, the story develops the relationship between Hellboy and Elizabeth Sherman, with Liz even bearing him children. Another unlikely love-struck character is Abraham Sapien, the aquatic empath who is usually the brains behind BPRD operations. He develops a love interest in Princess Nuala, twin sister of their adversary, Prince Nuada.

This sequel made a marked improvement from the earlier installment in the aspect of variety of creatures. Audiences would be introduced to malicious ‘tooth fairies’, goblins, trolls and all sorts of mythical creatures, borne from the imagination of director Guillermo Del Toro. The myriad of characters would dazzle you, not just by the quantity, but also the intricate details about each of them. My favourite would be the Angel of Death, sporting wings with numerous watchful eyes. You could see much thought had been put into designing such characters.

I must also applaud the performance of Ron Perlman (as Hellboy) and Luke Goss (as Prince Nuada). Ron Perlman was his usual sardonic self which made for heaps of laughter and entertainment with his blatant disregard for authority and sarcastic one-liners. I particularly liked Luke Goss’ portrayal of Prince Nuada. Although scheming and treacherous, the character seemed so convinced that he was doing the right thing. His fearsome demeanor was made all that more fearful, brought forth by the intensity of his iron will to fulfill his aims at all costs. It made me respect Nuada to a certain extent.

As mentioned, this is not a simple comic-book superhero film. Laced with wry humour, I am sure that adults would be highly entertained by this show. Coupled with some above-average visual effects,  Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) would be a good selection at the cinema.

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