Bet To Basic 《打雀英雄傳》 (2006)

Lloyd (Jordan Chan Siu-Chun) is Flying Dragon's cousin (Chin Kar-Lok). Flying Dragon is not a good gambler, but he does it anyway and is now in to some heavy debt with gangsters.

Lloyd returns from America in time to bail out his hapless cousin, and because his late mother left him with a Jade pendant, Lloyd's luck is extremely good.



No matter what the situation, Lloyd always wins at Mahjong,



... so Flying Dragon takes him around to gambling houses in order to win big money to pay off his debt.

Lloyd is cute, innocent, and naive ~ so when he meets Peggy (Rain Li), and falls for her, he gives up the lucky Jade pendant easily.




Of course, Peggy isn't who she really seems, and she gives the pendant to Lloyd's nemesis, Mahjong master Scott (Eric Kot), whom she is engaged to marry.



I watched this ONLY because Jordan Chan stars, and not for the content.

Apparently, there are more Mahjong movies out there, and a majority of the reviews aren't favorable.

I thought that it was a silly movie, but I've also come to the realization that a lot of silly movies hail from Hong Kong!

Silly, straight-forward, outlandish, sappy, brutal, graphic, or intense ... what difference does it make if a guy you're in love with is the star?!



There were funny scenes, ridiculous moments, actual serious parts, and so on, so what's not to like ~ and how can you not expect weirdness from a movie that centers around Mahjong?

I like to play the game on my PC,



... but I suppose that's a lot different from the actual, Chinese version that Jordan was so good at in Bet 2 Basic.

I wouldn't mind learning how to play that game, either, but it'd probably be a lifetime before I figured out exactly what to do, so I probably won't bother.

One, more screen shot, and the movie trailer is below.

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싱글파파는 열애중 / Single Papa in Love

This was the first Korean drama that I've watched in awhile.

Since AZN went off the air back in April, I've watched nothing but Japanese dramas online, along with a few Korean & Japanese movies. Korean dramas tend to run on, and the average has about 20 episodes to get through. When you have to record something on television, you're limited to an hour a day. When you can watch all, 20 episodes in one sitting ...

I tried that with Tropical Nights in December, and though it was a great drama, it took me nearly three days to watch from beginning to end, and I felt emotionally and physically drained afterward. Discipline is the key, and I fail every time.

Anyway, Single Papa in Love stars Oh Ji-ho as Kang Pung-ho.
He's gorgeous.
And though I've collected his images for years now, SPIL was the very first Korean drama that I saw him act in!
I always worry that my hot guys are going to disappoint or embarrass me with their awful acting (case in point ~ Daniel Henney).
Oh Ji-ho is great, and I'm interested in seeing more of what he's done now.

SPIL is about a young man, Kang Pung-ho (Oh Ji-ho) that gets his college sweetheart Yoon So-yi (Kang Sung-yun) pregnant, and she turns out to be a snob with lofty dreams who abandons him & their infant son to pursue her career as a concert pianist.
As luck (and Korean dramas) goes, Kang meets a girl, Jeon Ha-ri (Heo Yi-jae), who is already dating another guy, and she's also the daughter of the fiancée of Kang Pun-ho's ex-wife, Yoon So-yi.


Pung-ho's son, Kang San (Ahn Do-gyu), could have ruined this for me, but thankfully, he didn't act overly sappy or sweet.
Kang San was actually adorable, and I especially enjoyed the fact that a seven-year-old had to be the mother while his father acted like a little boy. Little Kang-san gets sick, and he ends up in the hospital.
He thinks that his mother is dead, and because his father is attracted to Ha-ri, it becomes inevitable that he runs into his ex, So-yi.
The complications don't end there, and it wasn't until more than 3/4 of the way through this drama that I began to understand and accept Pung-ho's personality.






Noona Ha-ri's original boyfriend, Min Hyun-ki was played by Im Ju-hwan, and he's actually kind a cute!
I liked his character as the take-for-granted boyfriend and doctor-in-training young man that begins to realize his true feelings for Ha-ri AFTER she falls so deeply in love with Pung-ho.
He's very young, and he had a bit-part, but it was obvious (to me) that he took what he did seriously, which showed each time he appeared on screen.

I made fun of this when I critiqued MiSa, and I'll do it again here with SPIL.
Oh Ji-ho is a physically fit, masculine guy. He doesn't belong in Korea the same way that Ito Hideaki doesn't belong in Japan, and Takeshi Kaneshiro doesn't belong in Taiwan.
They are three, distinct gentlemen that would blend in MUCH better alongside a Hollywood beauty than the Asian thirteen-year-old's that are considered to be grown women.

In one scene, Pung-ho asks Ha-ri what she'd like to do for an entire day. He knows that he has to dump her for the sake of his son, so he decides he's going to have one, last fling before he walks away. She tells him what she'd like to do, and this is their first, official date. When he picks her up that weekend, she is wearing a t-shirt with a cartoon-character girl's face on it, puckering up for a kiss. She hands him an identical t-shirt, with a cartoon-character boy that is also puckering up in the opposite direction. The look on Oh's face is PRICELESS, and when he told her that it was STUPID ... I clapped and cheered!

THANK YOU! I don't want to be the only person in the world who thinks that stuff like that is GAY, and I'm tired of the childish, immature antics of Asian folk, too.
GROW THE F*CK UP ALREADY!!

Anyway ... nothing in life or about it is ever going to be perfect, let alone make much sense, and at least I'm not alone in thinking that Asian MEN are wasted on clueless, foolish Asian girls.
Then again, it may not be so much the YOUTH of those nations that are to blame. Manga started the craze, and Anime ran with it, so I guess it stands to reason that the directors, writers, and producers of Asian dramas would follow suit in managing to convince an entire generation of hapless souls that the PEDOPHILE look is somehow IN and appealing.

Single Papa in Love was a good drama, and I look forward to watching more of Oh Ji-ho's work!

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