Korean thriller The Chaser lives up to the hype

Korean blockbuster The Chaser hit the screens in Hong Kong recently but seems to have failed to garner interest on the level of Park Chan-wook’s Old Boy. A big winner at the 45th Daejong Awards, The Chaser took home the Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor awards earlier this year. It also made a decent impact when screened at Cannes this year, and a Hollywood remake is already in progress.

The Chaser’s premise is quite straight-forward : a call girl is missing and her pimp is out looking for her. The pimp used to be a cop and he finds and catches the psychotic man who has killed a couple of his girls. This happens pretty much in the first third of the film; the remaining time is spent trying to find where the criminal has locked up the call girl as she may still be alive. On one hand, our protagonist pimp is trying to save the call girl, and on the other hand, the policemen struggle to find enough solid evidence to put the serial killer behind bars for good.

The Chaser’s so-called originality is in its focus on finding the victim and not on catching the killer and explaining his psychology (though there are one or two brief scenes about this). The film is director Na Hong-jin’s debut and it lacks the strong visual pizzazz. of his compatriot Park Chan-wook’s works. The only scene that stuck in my mind was the brutal fate of the call girl.

Reception of the film in the west has been mixed so far. Some critics don’t see what the fuss is all about while others praise the film as a refreshing take of a tired genre. Personally, I found the 120+ minute film enjoyable and it is a solid film if stylistically unsophisticated (which I think works in its favour).

Recommended for fans of serial killers and Korean blockbusters.

My first Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron install

Recently, I patched up an abandoned PC sitting in the back of my room and ventured into my first experience of a Linux distro.

Half a year ago, one late night, while surfing the web, my PC beeped, the screen went blank and the computer failed to reboot. After much trouble-shooting, I discovered that the SATA controller on the motherboard was fried. I ended up building a new PC around a more modern dual core CPU, and my old AMD single core system was left abandoned.

Fixing The Hardware
2 weeks ago, a friend of mine threw out an old PC. I promptly took that machine apart and salvaged the PATA hard disk. My guess was that the motherboard in my old PC was still functioning fine apart from the SATA controller, and I could probably get it to work with a older PATA drive connected to one of the IDE controllers. This turned out to be case and I now have a spare PC to play around with – so I decided to install Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron onto this system.

Before installation, my prime worries were whether Ubuntu would recognize all the hardware – which included an AMD 64 3200+ CPU, an ATI X700 series video card, and an Asus A8N-E motherboard – and difficulties in configuring the installation.

Installing Ubuntu 8.04
I am glad to report that my first experience of Ubuntu was a very pleasant one. Installation went without a hitch. Loading the OS via an installation DVD, I was taken through a simple 7 step guided process – all of the onscreen instructions were clear and easy to understand. The installation took about 15 minutes.

Upon completion of installation and a quick re-boot, I entered the Ubuntu desktop. Everything was working smoothly: keyboard and mouse were working, monitor was displaying in correct screen resolution, and broadband connectivity was present. As far as I can tell, all the hardware was working properly.

I was then prompted for 2 items : enabling drivers for the ATI video card (when I agreed, Ubuntu downloaded and installed without any problems) and system updates. A total of over 350 updates totalling 360+ MB were identified and this took roughly 40 minutes to download and install.

Next I launched Firefox 3.0.3 and was checking my mail in no time.

Overall, I am impressed with Ubuntu 8.04 and had decided to delved more into the OS.

My first Ubuntu Desktop : with Cairo Dock and Rainlendar

Is Metallica’s Death Magnetic any good?

Once the most respected metal band on the planet, Metallica went mainstream in 1991 with their blockbuster black album. Since that breakthrough, they have struggled to come up with a decent follow-up – partly, this was because grunge took over the music landscape in the early-mid 1990s, and Metallica had to evolve to survive. But what were they going to evolve into? Since 1991, they have tried to remain relevant (Load is sort of like alt-metal) but ended alienating themselves from fans (suing Napster), and ended up producing St. Anger (generally regarded as one of the crappiest albums ever made) in 2003.

Metallica’s latest album was marketed as a return to their roots. Essentially, this means Metallica failed to evolve into something more modern, more relevant and decided to return to their classic sound. Now, there is nothing wrong with this – sometimes we just want more of the same. But does Death Magnetic measure up to the high standards of Metallica’s first 4 albums?

In my opinion, not really. Sure, Kirk Hammett gets to play many guitar solos as if in compensation for the lack of solos on St. Anger. The tracks on Death Magnetic all hark back to the suite like epics of their glory days – tunes shift midway, tempos change, Hammett’s solos cut in, more aggressive riffing from James Hetfield . . . but for me, the riffs aren’t striking, aggressive or have enough attitude to them. Same for the solos, they seem to go on and on, but they fail to keep me interested.

Death Magnetic isn’t bad – it just isn’t exceptional either.

Thumbs up for David Gilmour’s Live In Gdansk!

David Gilmour’s latest CD Live In Gdansk consists of the entirety of his most recent studio album On An Island and fan favourite Pink Floyd tunes. I bought the plain 2CD version but apparently there are multiple options, some containing a DVD of the recorded concert. The band featured on the discs include Pink Floyd’s recently deceased founder and keyboard player Richard Wright as well as Roxy Music guitar virtuoso Phil Manzanera.

I am very impressed with this live album. These live versions of songs from On An Island sound more energetic – if there was one criticism I had of that studio album was it felt too lethargic. The live versions improve on the originals by concentrating less on lush textures and more on the tunes themselves; tempo of songs are less plodding and the guitar interplay between Gilmour and Manzanera is enjoyable.

Regarding the versions of Pink Floyd songs included in Live In Gdansk, I also believe they are worth owning. Firstly, the versions of Time, Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Wish You Were Here (nice piano fills) and a riveting Astronomy Domine all sound different enough from previous Pink Floyd live sets to make them worth listening to. More importantly, these versions of Fat Old Sun and Echoes are scorching hot!! David Gilmour’s guitar playing sounds re-vitalized and fresher than it has been in years – maybe the result of including an accomplished guitarist like Manzenera in the band as competition. The quality of music here is not of a cynical veteran going on tour to make a quick buck.

I wholeheartedly recommend Live In Gdansk for good song selection,  great sound quality and excellent guitar playing.

CD1 (Duration – 1:09:25)
01 : Speak To Me
02 : Breathe
03 : Time
04 : Breathe (Reprise)
05 : Castellorizon
06 : On An Island
07 : The Blue
08 : Red Sky At Night
09 : This Heaven
10 : Then I Close My Eyes
11 : Smile
12 : Take A Breath
13 : A Pocketful Of Stones
14 : Where We Start

CD2 (Duration – 1:19:45)
1 : Shine On You Crazy Diamond
2 : Astronomy Domine
3 : Fat Old Sun
4 : High Hopes
5 : Echoes
6 : Wish You Were Here
7 : A Great Day For Freedom
8 : Comfortably Numb