Tag Archives: Ken Jeong

KPop Demon Hunters – Movie Review

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TL;DR – Half Musical, Half Action Romp, Half Romance, Half Meditation on the Power of Art, Half Exploration on the Consuming Power of Shame, and All Style.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix service to view this film.

Huntrix fights a wave of demons on the top of a train.

KPop Demon Hunters Review Introduction –

As we get to our final films from 2025 before we write our best-of lists, it becomes very clear that no list would feel right if I didn’t engage with the most-streamed movie of the year. If any film has earned the right to be declared a cultural phenomenon this year, it would probably be this. It would be wrong to look at the year without exploring something with such a large cultural impact. Well, then, it is time to dive in and see if it lives up to all the accolades.  

So, to set the scene, throughout history, there have been demons escaping into our world to steal souls that are used as power by their dark lord Gwi-Ma (Lee Byung-hun). However, throughout history, there have always been those with strength of voice and character who have fought back and banished these demons back to the world they spawned from. Every generation, there are a new trio of Hunters that use their voices to reinforce the barrier between the worlds, the Honmoon. The current generation is a K-Pop band Huntrix featuring Rumi (Arden Cho/Ejae), Mira (May Hong/Audrey Nuna) & Zoey (Ji-young Yoo/Rei Ami). When a demon incursion goes very wrong, things get tense in the underworld because soon the Honmoon will turn golden and the demons will be stopped forever. It is this moment of desperation when the demon Jinu (Ahn Hyo-seop/Andrew Choi) comes up with a novel plan to defeat Huntrix: go after their fans by creating a demon boy band called Saja Boys.    

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Transformers Series Review – Exploring the Past

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TL;DR –.We explore the highs and lows, and lows, of the Transformers film series.

Disclosure – I paid for the Paramount+/Amazon Prime services that viewed these films.

Transformers –

We might be in the era of nostalgia, but that does not mean that current films can capture what made those original properties soar. An excellent example of this is Transformers, a series that swings wildly in quality and in how it connects with the series it is based on, and now I have watched them all.

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Murderville: Season 1 – TV Review

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TL;DR – While I don’t think they quite nailed the concept, it is a delight when it lands.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Disclosure – I paid for the Netflix subscription that viewed this show.

Murderville. Image Credit: Netflix.

Murderville Review –

I always love when someone takes a new spin on a familiar concept. While Police Procedurals have led into the realm of comedy, most notably with Brooklyn Nine-Nine. There is still a vast untapped gold mine of choices that you could explore. With that in mind, let us look at a show that combines police and improvisation oddly and uniquely.

So to set the scene, we open in on Terry Seattle (Will Arnett), a senior detective in the City Police Department. Things have not been going well for Terry, with the lingering death of his partner Lori (Jennifer Aniston) 15 years ago and the very recent divorce from his wife Rhonda (Haneefah Wood). She also happens to be the Police Chief. Well, on this day, things are going from bad to worse because there has been a murder, and Terry has just been lumped with a new partner Conan O’Brien. Now from here, we will be looking at the season as a whole, so there will be some [SPOILERS] ahead.   

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Occupation: Rainfall – Movie Review

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TL;DR – A sequel that improves on the first in every way, full of action, and a ride from the start till finish

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Nominated – Best Australian Film & Fascinating Worldbuilding

Disclosure – I was invited to a screening of this film.

Occupation: Rainfall. Image Credit: Monster Films.

Occupation: Rainfall Review –

A couple of years ago, I got to see this little Australian Science Fiction which was punching far above its weight. It was a movie filmed on a minuscule budget that did more with that budget than those with a much larger purse. It was a good representation of an alien invasion film, and full of some great action set pieces. So it was great to see that it was getting a sequel, and I am glad to say it improves on the first film in every way.       

In the years since the first film Occupation, the resistance movement has fought from the hillside towns and villages down to Sydney’s heart. It is a war of attrition and small hit-and-run operations, trying to take the city back one small section at a time. For Matt Simmons (Dan Ewing), this is a battle of zero compromises because it is a fight for their lives. But for Amelia Chambers (Jet Tranter), she is trying to find a diplomatic answer or try to find a cooperative way to work with the other subjugated aliens. However, when Wing Commander Hayes (Daniel Gillies) calls a retreat, and all hope seems lost, a rumour about a new weapon called Rainfall starts to spread. Rainfall could be their one hope, or humanities final downfall.

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Movie Review – Crazy Rich Asians

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TL;DR – During the film, I along with the whole cinema, laughed, cried, gasp ‘oh no you didn’t and I can’t remember a film that had that same reaction

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

Post-Credit Scene – There is a mid-credit scene

Crazy Rich Asians. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review –

There are some films that simply be being made are making a statement of intent. These are films like last year’s Black Panther (see review) and Wonder Women (see review), films that “conventional” Hollywood wisdom states that they shouldn’t be made because they won’t make any money. There is a long history of information coming from focus groups that people are not interested in films helmed by women and people of colour, information which is inevitable proven wrong time after time when the box office numbers are released. To put this in perspective, the last live-action film from Hollywood to feature a predominately Asian cast was The Joy Luck Club twenty-five years ago in 1993. This means a whole generation of people have grown up and not seen their stories or people like themselves up on the big screen, and well folks this is why representation matter. So while Crazy Rich Asians is important for just existing, it is even more power from the fact that it is also a fantastic film in its own right and one of my films of the year so far.

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