is it competition even in the grey area ? for just as crisp versions of  ‘The Avengers’ start to spread along P2P virtual file-sharing networks, (yet CAM version only on ‘The Dark Knight Rises’) a re-make of a popular action-heroe movie dawns onto grand iMAX screens :
 oops wrong movie // no wait, was that the right one and NOT this ? or might I be that manager whom I met LOST, while walking down from the Hyatt Hotel – who mentioned he was the author of iTaewon BLog ..

I have a rather menial job and dwell in an apartment considered old in the Millennium of high-tech high-rises, and that is why I escape to enjoy wondering in the amassed shopping complex of iPark Mall, built on top of the old YongSan Train Station serving as final terminal for South West regions of the Korean Peninsula . and to even imagine the North Wing is connected to the former YongSan Bus Terminal (now an electronics department store with “Hooters” below on the underground ! with the only /other/ chain in all of Korea South across the Han River, facing the Ritz-Carlton) opening onto the whole YongSan Electronics Market District !

 the contradictive block in front of YongSan Station is all torn-down . they started to break around ‘The Avengers’ and half was gone by the time ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ premiered . for while the store around were your normal variety, the inner core block comprised one of the last remnants of brothels, although the smallest and the least known among four-or-so red light districts in the Capital of Seoul – I mean, it really was red .. all the lights . amazing for it is in a downtown area with even Daewoo Electronics and Logitech Mouse repair centres near-by, while the other districts form their own secluded neighborhood . and in the new generation of its demise : fusion shops fronting as massage parlours operate in the very same buildings as the now-common PC Rooms (rent a computer mostly for on-Line gaming roughly W1000 by the hour) where students frequent throughout larger cities .

 

[ YONGSAN iPARK MALL ]

the whole of Korea is in the midst of the most-boiling heat wave since 18 Years, and again tamed (from consecutive military regimes since the Korean War) citizens bear without complaint in a barely air-conditioned mammoth complex . even the now not-so-common (only because so-many wanna-be’s have struck-up shop all-around town) StarBucks is almost-body temperature . ironically, the coolest (in a relative term) place to eat or have a coffee is at a hot traditional Korean-soup restaurant or an ice cream parlour among the three floors sandwiching CGV Movie Theatre within iPark Mall .

 

[ CGV MOVIE THEATRE ]

yes, any super-or-almost-heroe movie should be enjoyed at the largest iMAX screen for sheer sense of reality, and in the Capital of Seoul, in the order of screen-size would be : WangSimNi > SangAm > YongSan with the latter two’s difference minimal . but as WangSimNi still a poor-man’s shopping mall with relatively low-tier train and subway hub meaning : inconvenient transportation, you normally opt for YongSan aside from ultimate blockbusters . ofcourse SangAm lies far West : only if you wanna visit the old World Cup statdium or if you dwell in the Wester-most Satellite city of ilsan .

what contrast this is, to the preceding ‘The Avengers’ and ‘The Dark Crusade Rises’, for only rear half of seats are taken on WeekEnd Afternoons 0o0 times are changing again, and now I see roughly half of those entering viewing rooms show reservations stored in their smartphones .

SPOILER WARNING

[ TOTAL RECALL 2012 REMAKE OF 1990 ]

How does it compare to the original 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie ?

OK if you’re a Sci-Fi fan : think Blade Runner (1982) this time around 😉 yes the movie that made a whole new inspiration for more to come before the Millennium ! with streets akin to decayed Hong Kong full of Chinese restaurants . for amassed Australia in this movie shows Chinese, Japanese and even Korean logo signs .

SPOILER ALERT

if you have yondered-in without reading the scenario, you wait in anticipation for the wonderous space-trip to Mars, where the latter half of the original movie takes place . ain’t gonna happen . instead to mole-tunnel deep into Earth to the tune of another modern Sci-Fi movie ‘The Core’ (2003) . Jesus : a whole building going down ?! is a universe-notch on top of the flying aircraft carrier from ‘The Avengers’.  and it gets better : for it goes (how-da-heck ???) through the core and comes out the other side of the Globe 0o0 from the recent Olympic-clad UK to down-under Australia to be exact ! umph I could use that, for down-under still is so far-away even though it lies on similar time-zone on Planet Earth -_-

DANGER ! DANGER ! WILL ROBINSON

[ iMAX BACK-DROP SCENERY ]

alas, here the very reason why you should watch this on large iMAX screens, for akin to Gotham City in the preceding ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ the plane-hovering sights of both contrasting metropolis (while UK developed futuristically like ‘Logan’s Run’ 1976, Australia degraded into tanker piles as in ‘Blade Runner’ 1982). oh, do they look so real


extensive above-the-street hovering chase scenes take place, for quite long, akin to ‘The Fifth Element’ (1997) and ‘Star Wars Episode ii Attack of the Clones’ (2002)
but a big flaw comes when the flying-car is struck-down to the bottom the /real/ street .. where all the surrounding seems modern-day London ??? simply don’t compute, even how virtually-hard you try to imagine

 

[ SUPER-ACTION HEROE ]

Best Scene no-matter-what :

hand-battle sequence between Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel in the falling elevator shaft .. more extensive than Paula Patton vs. Léa Seydoux high-up Burj Khalifa in Mission impossible Ghost Protocol, last Christmas ! I personally won’t mind if they scapped all and did this from start-to-finish of the whole movie, yum

and as more hand-shoot-and-every-which-way-you-can-imagine battle scenes ensue, you wake-up to the reality – questioning how these although mightly well-trained special operatives, come out without any broken bones (although with minor scratches for screen decoration) as they are no Super Heroe hmmm

 

[ EPILOGUE ]

as this is a re-make you cannot help making comparisons, with the original but other Sci-Fi scenes come to mind, such as when the robot forces gather on top of the inter-core transport building to invade deteriorating Australia : resembles in all-white color too, to the clone armies amassing in Star Wars Episode i and ii .

still with two of the most beautiful Millennium actresses packed into a movie with panoramic future metropolis scenes, in the end : you know Koreans even with a minor industry were wise to NOT rush the threatres .

  • although the high-point is the whole concept carried-over from the original movie enhanced by future metropolis special-effects this time around, the low-point is the human-side : as the script needs to be more organized for the dialog amounts to nothing although wordings are aspiringly grand, especially on revolutionary motives,
  • more explaination needed on the inter-core transport between UK and Australia,
  • inter-Globe conflict might not have been enough on a Sci-Fi re-make, when space-faring and time-travel movies abound,
  • and if it needed to remain solely an endless-action movie : a 4D version from CGV would have been welcome ! aight, with moving seats – YESSS when going through the Earth core

 

 

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