Movies: I, Frankenstein

Movies: I, Frankenstein

Hi all, don't have extra much to say before the review of the movie posting except that there ain't very much high budget blockbusters thus far into 2014. Yet there is still people who need some entertainment of which movies are still a good form of. So is there any movie worth seeing? How about this one about Frankenstein.

Just for your information, this Frankenstein is an alternate storyline and is not the traditional slow and clumsy one word sprouting Frankenstein that we are familiar with. Of course the movie does use elements from the original Frankenstein such as the monster with no soul and the same scientist that created him called incidentally Victor Frankenstein (There seems to be some kinda link between the name Victor and bad guys like Frankenstein, Hugo, Von doom). So is this rehash or revised version of Frankenstein good to watch? Lets read the review and find out!

This is how he used to look like.. not much to look at...

Today, the new and improved Frankenstein looks like....

Impressive huh?

Or to be even more impressed

One day.. just one day....

Anyway how did this movie perform?

Storyline 3.5/5

Given that this is another take of a story that most people used to be accustomed with, this movie is able to keep the audience enthralled for quite a while as they introduce the audience to this new world that Frankenstein lives in, which is actually somewhat like our world. However, the movie only does this briefly which would be fine if this movie is going to be just a one off thing. This is further exemplified by the 90 minutes show time so you shouldn't be expecting too much of a description of this world Frankie is in.

The whole flow of the story is determined pretty quickly from the start and from then its just a progression of things with little twists and turns. It is basically just following a angry Frankenstein as he discovers himself stuck in a battle between good and bad and his reaction towards that as he chooses sides. Nonetheless, the movie does a good job of keeping the story flowing and as a result it helps ease you from action scenes to action scenes and you will not feel too bored but neither will you care about the story too much as its quite standard.

In short, the story is done well enough to not be a chore but help move the movie along. Its not overly complex but at least it generally makes sense  and doesn't become a bore.

Character 3/5

The main character of this movie is obviously Frankenstein. It is also clear to say that he is the only main character. The rest of the people you see in the movie are all supporting characters.

Despite this, there is actually little emphasis on who Frankie actually is probably because he has no soul and hence nothing unique to to really focus on. This trend follows on to all the supporting characters also and hence all of them are forgettable cliche character types that you will see in every other movie. 

It's saving grace is that it focuses on introducing instead of the person, the two distinct groups of people that we have which are the gargoyles and the demons. But even then there is not particularly that much emphasis placed in this part especially when you consider the 90 minutes show time.

This is good.. didnt know good was ugly too

This is evil, as usual ugly

Cinematography 3.5/5

This is supposed to be the area of focus for for most action movies and this movie captures these few aspects. 

Epic shots that show how big some buildings buildings are and how magnificent they look. 

Many many fire and light special effects that have a intended meaning of someone dying. 

Large scale fighting where you will see many pretty lights with snippets of close up to the various more important fighters 

Close up fights involving only a few combatants that are nicely choreographed. 

These are the expected aspects that all action oriented movies must have or should try to involve. However there are areas that can be improved to lend more immersion and areas such as large scale battle are basically just skirmishes with little tactics or strategy. That is unlike how LOTR does it which should should be a good reference point for large scale battle Cinematography. 

Music 3.5/5

The music is actually pretty significant and strong in this movie adding alot to the overall immersiveness and feel of the movie. Makes the action and impacts sound a lot more strong. Overall this is the way action movies should strive towards.

Spectacle 3.5/5

For a action show it has pretty above average storyline and the action scenes are pretty good. The 90 min timeframe for the movie is also alright as some other action movies, when they try to drag for time end up frustrating or boring the audience which is not what this movie did. This movie flows from battle scene to battle scene with appropriate amount of backdrop. Battle scenes are pretty fair with people "dying" from both sides save the more important characters.

Of course there is more to be improved like via slow mo cam and first person and stuff like that but this movie does alright.

Overall

Storyline: 3.5 (Coherent and has a flow to it, can be better but is pretty good for action flick)
Character: 3 (Focuses on one character but this character doesnt have much character to him because that is his character. Understand this statement? :) )
Cinematography: 3.5 (Does action scenes and epic scenes well. Action scenes generally enjoyable but there are clear areas for improvement)
Music: 3.5 (Strong score and sound effects to add alot of umph to the movie)
Spectacle: 3.5 (For a action movie its above average in terms of action and storyline. Doesn't really do anything particularly new however aside from its new world situation)

Overall: 3.4 (This score is a good reflection of a movie that is good for passing time. If you have nothing else to do, you cant really go wrong with this movie as its action is sufficient for the mainstream audience. Is it a must see, a show that you will regret not seeing? Most likely not. So if you have no other plans for a weekday night you could catch this movie. Especially if you are on a time budget of 1 and a half hour movie.)

I should honestly have wrote this review as soon as i got home after the movie so that the week end viewers would have this info.. Will try to do that in the future :)

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Food: Menya Musashi Kodou

Food:

Had quite a few pretty good eating outings recently and decided that I should be a bit more regular in my reviews and share with people about interesting places to eat at.... or not! Since I have the opportunity to eat out while some people might want to make a more informed choice, I feel that its good to make full use of the information I have garnered and perhaps help you manage expectation or even save your trip and time. So here is another pretty unique place that I have eaten recently.

This shop is recognizable by their samurai drawings on the outside as well as inside of the store. I believe he is supposed to be Musashi who is famous for using two swords at the same time?

So lets get down into the review.

Food

We ordered a single side dish to share and a main dish for each of us and you can see the pictures below

Tempura mushroom! 

Besides this side dish, there were other sides like steamed or fried gyoza and tofu amongst other choices. It was pretty nicely fried and very crispy!

The standard Ramen with your choice of meat

Same Ramen, different choice of meat!

The unique point of this place is that they have 3 different type of soup bases namely the white, black and red soup base. The white is the usual Tonkatsu type which is pictured above. The black is apparently more garlic based but none of us purchased that choice. Mine was the red base that you shall see below which is supposed to be spicy and if you order it in this separate form it is apparently thicker then the normal soup.

This was my order, char siew separate from the soup base cause I am brave!

 The next interesting draw of this place is that the choice of noodle that I ordered whereby the ramen is separate from the soup/gravy, you can actually upside the noodles up to 5X the original. The original is about 120g which should be the usual for the soup ramen. Then you can get up to 600g of ramen. However, they do not add extra soup or gravy for free though which is probably the issue we have over here that i will discuss further. Make a guess of how much I ordered since it was free :)

Side view of my ramen

Top view so you can make a better guess

As you continue to guess here is what other issues we have. As you can see, basically all the meals are just about 2 or 3 slices of meat with bamboo and also half an egg. You basically can only choose between the soup version or this version where you can add more noodles. There are some other dishes they serve but i suppose this is what they are suppose to be special in.

So as you can see, it was pretty difficult to finish eating up everything and it was pretty clear i over estimated my abilities. Note that the amount of noodles can increase but there is additional charges if you wanted more sauce/gravy. The biggest problem is that the noodles are served slightly cold or at least towards room temperature. After dipping it into the sauce many many times, you will have a situation whereby the sauce is just cold.. This made the dish a bit harder to finish and I think it is safe to say that if you choose more then 2X the normal noodle amount you will experience this. They should really just consider putting the gravy on sort of a heater or like a steamboat style so that the gravy and hence the noodles will be eaten piping hot.

I personally love to eat my noodles hot.. So this made the experience and taste of the food a bit less tasty then I would have liked. That being said, the normal soupy ramen choices are all fine but they do not have the additional noodle options. The noodles are slightly more unique then what i have tasted before and they are quite QQ or chewy in a good sense.

All in all, the food  is different from your usual ramen shops, has a bit more expensive feel, but if you going for the soup separate from the noodle option, it will not be nice for anything more then 2X of noodles.

Food 3/5

Atmosphere 3.5/5

The staff is pretty attentive and the ordering is done via a tablet which gives you pictures and the like. However the traditional menu is still given to you. The little probably that i have is that all the dishes such as the meats are given in their traditional japanese styled english spelt names so you will see stuff like Tontoro and have no clue what meat it is.

Adds some authenticity to the food but not non-japanese friendly. The seats are big and they serve water freely so that is some plus points to the place. Overall, the atmosphere is pretty ok, slightly noisier as the place is slightly squeezy but thanks to the location of the seats, the waiters and staff will not be getting into your way very often.

Price 3/5

Its not expensive, but i would say it is neither cheap too. For someone like me who cannot really tell the difference between quality meat, I can't really tell why the usual choices are more expensive when the portion of meat is lower. You actually have one two ramen dishes with the same type of meat but you need to add extra 2 or 3 dollars for a additional slice of the meat and everything is the same.

Its good they dont really charge extra for the separate noodle and gravy choice if you want to add extra noodles. But note that it already costs 14.90 - 18.90 for that choice as opposed to 12 - 15 for the normal Ramen when in essence it is somewhat identical.in content to the normal Ramen.

Side dishes are also averagely priced from 4.90 to about 10.90 depending on what you get.

Our total for 3 persons for 3 mains and 1 side was about 60+ dollars just for your information

Accessibility 3/5

This place is located in Jurong and as far as it seems I think it is currently the only one of its kind. But its location near to the MRT is pretty good although all staying at the north and east would probably find it a chore to get there. There was actually a queue at about 7 plus so I suggest that you queue earlier to avoid. Its more due to the small size of the outlet and possibly cause it might be slightly novel.


Overall 

Food: 3 (It tries to be premium and feels premium in some sense, but taste wise it is just slightly lacking especially for my choice)
Atmosphere: 3.5 (Its a nice place to sit and chat, not too messy)
Price: 3 (Not entirely worth the price but if they do some improvements it might be more worth)
Accessibility: 3 (Has queues and is all the way on the west side, but least its near the mrt)

Overall:  3.125 (Overall, I would say this score is a good reflection of my feelings which is a place you can eat once, you wont regret it at least for the experience sake, you may come back but most likely wont feel any particular strong feeling to return. There is too little pulling factor to eat here more then once, but on your meal here, you won't feel cheated or anything either.)

I took slightly longer to post this up because its name was not in the westgate directory cause it was probably too new. Nonetheless, I should have some reviews coming out soon... in actual fact I actually currently have an excess of things to review so hope I can get it done soon :)

BTW for those who were wondering, I ordered the noodles X3 and I am proud to say, I should have managed to finish about 2.5X of the noodles before i gave up... of course one reason was due to the lack of hot gravy.. Hopefully they will take this into consideration and do something about it!

Its website is over here http://www.menyamusashi.com.sg/ for more details and stores

Food: Paradise Dynasty

Food: Paradise Dynasty

For those who do not know, there is this large chain of eateries that sells various genre/categories of food and this is the Paradise group. This paradise chain generally can be identified with some Paradise word inside for example, Paradise inn, Kungfu Paradise, Canton Paradise and other more obscure names like My Nasi. Dont ask me how did they come out with their naming convention but its a pretty strong group as you can see from their reach in Singapore. You would probably choose Paradise dynasty for their noodles and their xiao long bao although they do offer other foods like fried rice and the like. It is like an alternate Ding Tai Fung. So lets look at what we ordered!

Heres their own plate with their nice branding

Their choices of Xiao Long Bao

In real life!

As you can see here, this is probably the main driving factor of why you would actually go to Paradise Dynasty to eat, which is their multi colored xiao long baos that is infused with various flavors. The middle one is the usual xiao long bao, while from the green clock wise, it is ginseng, garlic, truffles, crab roe, sze chuan, cheesy and foe gras which is the brownish one.

All xiao long baos are pretty well made and sturdy enough and they do have their distinct flavors when you eat into them. I would personally say that it is a fun experience to order the entire set but you actually can order 6 or 10 of the same flavor of xiao long bao, but they cost up to 13.60 for 10 of the same colored xiao long bao. Do personally feel that it might be slightly too much to eat it 10 times.

The problem you probably might face here is that if you are gonna share this with your friend, you will only have one flavor to try out so you probably have to divide them with your friend. Buying two entire sets might be slightly too filling also.

By the way, xiao long bao should be eaten as soon as possible (but dont get scalded by the soup inside) cause when the xiao long bao is cold it is not as taste to eat.

This was the other two dishes that we ate

La Mian with Marbled beef (SPICY)

This is my personal favorite from Paradise Dynasty and actually i believe this is currently the only place i know that serves this. Its kinda like MA LA la mian and I like how it makes my lips sore after eating due to the spiciness. Its fun and if you like spicy, you should try it.

La Mian Hot and Sour

 This is the second dish that we ordered and it is the traditional suan la tang, the hot and sour one. This one can be found in many other places such as Lao Beijing and Ding Tai Fung and to be honest, I would say that all these places have different tasting Hot and Sour soup. It is generally so different that you probably would feel that it is different dishes. Lao Beijing has a slightly more peppery taste to it, Ding Tai Fung is not that spicy. This one was reasonably spicy and pretty nice.

Overall, I would say that Paradise Dynasty has a good mix of food for all customers and unlike DTF, their individual rice and noodle dishes are actually sufficient as a meal itself. For DTF, you almost always have to order some additional food such as xiao long bao or meat dishes or veggie to have a filling meal as DTF has noodle choices that are devoid of meat. Most choices of food are pretty nice tasting and their portions are very very sufficient!

Food 4.5/5

Atmosphere 4/5

One good point about Paradise group is that their tables are big and well spaced, and their decor has some type of ambience to it. Their staff is also very quick to respond and I even saw one of them accept the customer complain pretty sincerely. Its probably a company that would make amends should they have wronged you in anyway.

There is the occassionally random tiny flies flying under light at times and this is not the first place i seen it, i seen it before in pizza hut too but not sure why they appeared. Seems like a totally random issue and it dissipates in a while but just letting you all know it.

Price 3.5/5

This is the breakdown of the food that we got

As you can see, it ends up to about 43 to 45 dollars for two pax which is 20+ per pax. Given that we ate till we were pretty full, it is a above average worthiness kinda price. You can see that the 8 Xiao Long Bao costs us 13.80 and if you actually just wanted 10 of the normal xiao long bao its about 9.60 SGD. 

The rest of the dishes per person should range between 9 dollars to about 16 dollars so it is a pretty OK price overall :)

Tea is served immediately but note it is chargeable

Accessibility 4/5

The store sizes are really big which allows quick turnover which means even with long queues, they should move fast. However, like DTF, these places will have significant queue on weekends and friday nights. When we ate that day however, we left around 6.30 and there was already a growth of a small queue of maybe like 5-7 sets of people there. It is also very near Jurong East MRT located inside Westgate.

Overall

Food: 4.5 (Food is filling and its pretty unique and good tasting, there is also quite a good variety)
Atmosphere: 4 (Big store with very good decor and spaces. Seats are big)
Price: 3.5 (Good price for the food, obviously can always be cheaper but overall its pretty worth)
Accessibility: 4 (Easy to go but has the occassional queue)

Overall: 4 (A score of 4 is pretty good indication of a place that you would visit again and again when you have the craving. It is also pretty worth the price and there is good variety that will not let you be too bored with the food choices. I would recommend this as a place to bring your friends for the above average type of meal on a regular basis especially if they have not tried the multi colored bao before. Even more so since you probably cannot try all the baos in one setting if you are eating with your friend. I personally will go back there whenever i got the xiao long bao craving)

Share your experience here if you eaten at these places before :)

This is the company website here : http://www.paradisegroup.com.sg/