Passport Malaysia

Yeah, so that's where he's hiding for 15 years

Do continue watching, can't wait for season 2 next year, eager to find out who's the third father is

Ya lor, was a bit disappointed first season storyline ended like that ... need to wait for next season

When you wrote "so much violence, nudity & touch on some of the taboo subjects" ... I was expecting GoT level,
1st & 3rd aspects, ya; 2nd, medium level only, heheh.

Did you notice that the edge of the screen is always out of focus? Like only the centre is sharp. Sometimes, the edge even get distorted a bit, not until fish lens angle, but slightly.

Nudity in an Indian show, that's a very very big deal already, full frontal, multiple sex scenes, plus a dick also
I won't be surprised if some of the actress received death threat later on from some conservative locals.

anyway, yeah, the shooting style reminds me of the shows from olden days, where only center if focused, edges are blurred

also just found out the flashbacks scenes & the modern scenes are shot by two totally different directors separately, but only weaved together during end production, IMO that's no small feat

This post has been edited by greyshadow: Jul 12 2018, 04:42 PM

Cool! Thanks for sharing!

Finally got around S2 of The Handmaid's Tale. Not only did the show didn't dipped in quality but actually improve upon the first season. The best thing about the show is no matter how terrible the situation gonna be...always a slimmer of hope around the corner. The journey goes without saying will be extremely unsettling to navigate.

Condor(2018)
Created by Todd Katzberg, Jason Smilovic, and Ken Robinson
Stars- Max Irons, Leem Lubany, William Hurt, Brendan Fraser.
Debuted- June 6-weekly(10 episodes)

Based on James Grady’s novel Six Days of the Condor.
Max Irons plays Joe Turner, smart, talented and self-centered
young CIA analyst.
Joe stumbles onto a terrorist plot he shouldn’t, something to do
with a deadly biological agent that puts millions of lives at
risk that has origins within the government itself.

Something along the lines of Homeland but manage to distance
it from similar fare. The action and story pacing serve as Condor's
greatest strengths.
Watched 6 episodes and I liked it.




This post has been edited by lleihuan: Jul 24 2018, 03:46 PM

Castle Rock(2018)
Premiere date: Jul 25-First three episodes
(10 episodes).Future episodes-weekly.

Creators: Sam Shaw, Dustin Thomason
Executive producers- J. J. Abrams, Stephen King.
Stars: Andre Holland,Melanie Lynskey, Bill Skarsgård,Scott Glenn.

Based on the stories of Stephen King.Like any usual Stephen King novel,
Castle Rock is another small Maine town (At least in the first three episodes)

Henry Deaver(Andre Holland), a lawyer representing death-row defendants,
whose sole purpose is getting inmates off death row. And is known for losing
the majority of his cases.

Deaver’s returns home to Castle Rock. He grew up in here but left as a boy after
his adopted father was killed. He has a fraught relationship with the town's people,
they blame him for his father’s death.
(Reminded me of recent running series,"Sharp Objects", the whole town is haunted
by trauma)

A young man is found in a cage in an abandoned part of the jail and he only utters
a name-"Henry Deaver". Deaver is asked to provide counsel to the anonymous victim.

Watched the three episodes. The third episode, the story gains much-needed focus
as Lynskey take center stage.
Worth watching? It was okay. Not going to work for everyone.
It is much less of a studied character drama.
May gain momentum as the season progresses.

The Innocents
Premieres August 24, 8 episodes
Stars: Sorcha Groundsell, Percelle Ascott, Guy Pearce.

June, an English schoolgirl, on the cusp of her
sixteenth birthday. June’s stern stepfather (Sam Hazeldine)
plans to move the family to a remote area of Scotland
where she will have limited contact with others.

Her father doesn't know that June has a secret
boyfriend, Harry (Percelle Ascott).
Both students, making plans to run away to be together
and start afresh before June’s birthday.
Buying a cheap car and heading off into the unknown,
Harry and June later find out they're being pursued by
two strangers.

And there's another problem, June is a shape-shifter.
She processes the ability to take on other people’s forms
when she touches them in moments of agitation, leaving
the person she copies into a vegetative state.

The secret behind June’s abilities seems to lie with her
absent mother(mysteriously absent for three years), and a
Dr. Halvorson (Guy Pearce) with her shifting.

June's first shift into the body of a big, bearded
man on 2nd episode, a creepy choice for an initial transformation.

If you are expecting a faster-paced supernatural story, I think
you will be disappointed, but overall a worth watch.






This post has been edited by lleihuan: Aug 25 2018, 10:19 AM

Managed to watch the whole series. Definitely a slow burner type of drama, but a well directed one.
I didnt read the book, so the final twist definitely took me by surprise.

also, dont skip the final episode's credit scene hehe

This post has been edited by G_KeN: Aug 28 2018, 01:04 AM

Yes, just don't stop too soon or you might miss the final surprise.
Did Camille save a murderer so she could kill again?

Bodyguard (August 2018-UK)
Creator: Jed Mercurio
Stars: Richard Madden (Game of Thrones), Keeley Hawes
Six episodes-2 episodes available-
remaining four episodes weekly.

Richard Madden(David Budd), an Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran
with PTSD turned Specialist Protection Officer at home.
The tour of in Afghanistan has scarred him mentally and
physically and cost him his marriage to his wife
Vicky (Sophie Rundle).A man who spends too much time with
his job that he doesn’t really understand his family.
He barely knows his kids and needs help but lacks the
means or the ability to get it.

David is promoted (after the intense opening scene, where
he manages to calm down a bomb crisis aboard a train,
a female suicide bomber cowering in the toilet)
to protect the Conservative Home Secretary,
Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes) who refuses to apologize for
supporting military action overseas.
She was a controversial figure with beliefs that were not
in line with much of what David thought.

The pace, well executed and breath-taking.
The train attack, a van being driven by terrorists towards
a school. And the attack on the Home Secretary from a sniper
raised the bar for how high stakes "Bodyguard" is willing to go.

The ending of the 2nd episode also set up a whole new status quo,
will David acts as a spy, reporting back to the police on Julia’s activities?
Or a scandal?



This post has been edited by lleihuan: Aug 29 2018, 08:57 AM

Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan(2018)
Premieres Aug. 31, 2018 (eight episodes available)
Creators- Carlton Cuse, Graham Roland
Stars- John Krasinski(A Quiet Place), Wendell Pierce.

List of former big-screen Jack Ryans, Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford,
Ben Affleck and Chris Pine.

This is an original story and not an adaptation of any of Clancy’s novels
and it is inspired by the franchise ’s past. It captures the spirit of the
Clancy brand as it exists today, mostly in video game form.
This series offers excellent character-based drama than just its namesake.
And it stars a likable leading man in John Krasinski and he’s a
pleasure to watch.

It accomplished by starting at an early point of Ryan's career
in modern-day Washington DC. He was just an analyst at the CIA.
Sitting behind a desk, he follows a trail of a suspicious pattern of transfers in
Yemen to someone he believes is planning a huge attack.
And later find himself dropped into the middle of the action.

The show’s main villain, Suleiman (Ali Suliman), who
survived a 1983 U.S. bomber attack in Lebanon and becomes
radicalized as a young man in a French prison.

First five episodes are great, ending with Jack confirming that
Hanin(Dina Shihabi) has fled her husband, Suleiman.

And we can tell the entire series of events is leading up to something big.




This post has been edited by lleihuan: Sep 1 2018, 10:18 AM

Big Little Lies is excellent. Excellent cast and excellent directing. 7 episodes in total, so every episode is tight without any unnecessary filler plots. Supposedly a limited series but is recently announced for season 2 due to popularity and great reviews.

Jack Ryan update pretty much your standard hunt for terrorist but failed at grounding the storytelling aspects. Dunno maybe the TV network aesthetic or predictability of the plotline throw me off. Still rehashing "24" era of story beats while Homeland and The Americans already showed it can be done differently and delved in complex characterisations.
Not my cup of coffee....

replace Jack Ryan with Jack Bauer and some countdown clock you'll get the 24 reboot

but overall, not a bad series, looking forward to Season 2, which is already confirmed.
hope to see more characters from Tom Clancy's universe in the next season, hopefully John Clark

suspense, twist, chase, action, violence and some nudity are all there, but it feels a bit of shallow, maybe due to limited episodes this season, 8 episodes only, too much to cramp into and have to sacrifice the complexity
the drone guy plot is too draggy, should have cut shorter, and the terrorists are too typical 24 villain as well, was hoping for a villain that's more worthy & complex in the beginning, but disappointing at the end

"I'm just an Analyst!" famous quote of Jack Ryan

With a brand new cast.

Calling adrenaline junkies...please give Money Heist a shot. A criminal genius orchestrating complicated robbery schemes that doesn't insult your intelligence. Going straight for the action that waste no time with turns and twists unfolding at breakneck speed. This is a smarter version of the old Prison Break formula in the context of pulling heist instead escaping prison. Thoroughly enjoyed this.

Looks like they managed to capture few of the iconic characters from the book. Right now I'm in the middle of volume 3. More importantly caught a glimpse of Henry Rollins in the trailer. That's a good indication this might be good.

This post has been edited by 6so: Sep 11 2018, 07:45 PM

The First(14 September 2018)
Eight-episodes- All available.
Director- Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Creator- Beau Willimon
Stars- Sean Penn, Anna Jacoby-Heron, Natascha McElhone

Set slightly in the future, 2030 in New Orleans.
The story begins with the first early attempt manned
mission to Mars ending in misery and failure.

Tom Hagerty (Sean Penn), an astronaut was pushed out of the
initial mission after personal problems.
A single father was married to a tattoo artist. He is also trying
not to lose his teenage daughter Denise (Anna Jacoby-Heron), a
a waitress and a gifted painter who’s struggling with a drug problem.
She still grappling with her mother’s death.

Tom Hagerty come back to the fold to create a new team,
the only thing preventing them from doing it is
popular will and as him and Laz Ingram(Natascha McElhone)
try to regain funding for the new mission.

The First, do not do anything that you might expect a
series like this to do. That is the best part.
The story mostly takes place on Earth and how astronauts
get to the starting line.

Denise is simply remarkable, the series capitalizes on
her talent by building many long scenes around her.
Well acted series.