VietNamNet Bridge – “Thor: The Dark World”, “Ender’s Game”, “Las Vegas” or “Snowpiercer” are the most significant movies on the big screen this month.
1. Ender’s Game
Release date: 1/11
In the near future, a hostile alien race (called the Formics) have attacked Earth. If not for the legendary heroics of International Fleet Commander, Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley), all would have been lost. In preparation for the next attack, the highly esteemed Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) and the International Military are training only the best young children to find the future Mazer. Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), a shy, but strategically brilliant boy is pulled out of his school to join the elite.
Arriving at Battle School, Ender quickly and easily masters increasingly difficult war games, distinguishing himself and winning respect amongst his peers. Ender is soon ordained by Graff as the military’s next great hope, resulting in his promotion to Command School. Once there, he’s trained by Mazer Rackham, himself, to lead his fellow soldiers into an epic battle that will determine the future of Earth and save the human race.
2. The Spy: Undercover Operation
Release date: 1/11
The Spy: Undercover Operation is a 2013 South Korean spy comedy film about an agent (Sol Kyung-gu) who is undercover in a foreign country while his wife (Moon So-ri) has no idea what he does for a living.
Chul-soo is the greatest secret agent in South Korea, but at home he is a loving husband who’s intimidated by his flight attendant wife Young-hee, who thinks her husband is a normal office worker.
One day, Chul-soo tells his wife that he’ll be going to Busan for business, but actually travels with his department head Jin to Bangkok, Thailand, to carry out a top secret operation with national ramifications. While in Bangkok, Chul-soo spots his wife Young-hee (who is supposed to be in Korea) with a good-looking man named Ryan. Chul-soo has his hands full with his mission, but also decides to follow his wife…
3. Baby Blues
Release date: 1/11
Baby Blues, a Hong Kong movie, is about a young couple who just moved into a new home and comes upon a mysterious doll that will obviously mess up their lives forever. The wife, Seut Ching, becomes pregnant with twins but since her spouse, Yip Tou, was always busy with work, he would come home late every night. One unfortunate occasion, Suet Ching suffers a fall and ends up having to give birth… but to only one child. This is when she begins to show signs of depression and extremely weird behavior.
The movie stars Raymond Lam, Kate Tsui and Karena Ng.
4. Thor: The Dark World – 3D Atmos
Release date: 8/11
Faced with an enemy that even Odin and Asgard cannot withstand, Thor must embark on his most perilous and personal journey yet, one that will reunite him with Jane Foster and force him to sacrifice everything to save us all.
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Anthony Hopkins
Language: English with Vietnamese subtitles
5. Free Birds – 3D
Release date: 15/11
Two turkeys from opposite sides of the tracks must put aside their differences and team up to travel back in time to change the course of history – and get turkey off the holiday menu for good.
Stars: Woody Harrelson, Owen Wilson, Dan Fogler
Language: English with Vietnamese subtitles
6. Commitment
Release date: 20/11
Commitment is a South Korean spy thriller film starring Big Bang’s T.O.P. The son of an ex-North Korean agent is tasked to kill North Korean spies in Seoul to save his younger sister.
Before coming to South Korea, nineteen-year-old Myung-hoon (Choi Seung-hyun) never imagined he would become a killer. Myung-hoon was born with a silver spoon in his mouth in the North and his dream was to become a pianist. But when his father died after being wrongfully accused, his aspirations were shattered into pieces. Myung-hoon comes to South Korea and becomes a killer on the condition that his sister Hye-ri (Kim Yoo-jung) will be safe. When he receives an order, he has to kill the person, no questions asked. The only friend of this high school killer is Hye-in (Han Ye-ri), a victim of bullying. Myung-hoon has nowhere to go and no one to turn to and gradually opens his heart to Hye-in. As they become friends, Myung-hoon and Hye-in grow to understand each other and are not afraid to sacrifice themselves for one another. The film is about third generation Koreans since the division of the peninsula and the Korean War, historical events that the two characters did not directly experience that nevertheless change their lives and destinies.
7. Tom Yum Goong 2 – 3D
Release date: 22/11
Tom Yum Goong 2 is a Thai martial arts film starring Tony Jaa, Yanin Vismitananda, and Marrese Crump. The film is the sequel to Tom-Yum-Goong.
Once again, Kham’s pet elephant has been abducted and he must fight anyone in his way to find him.
8. Captain Phillips
Release date: 29/11
Captain Phillips is a 2013 American action thriller directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Tom Hanks and Barkhad Abdi. The film is a biopic of merchant mariner Captain Richard Phillips, who was taken hostage by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean during the Maersk Alabama hijacking in 2009 led by Abduwali Muse.
The screenplay by Billy Ray is based upon the book, A Captain’s Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea (2010), by Richard Phillips with Stephan Talty. The film is produced by Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, and Michael De Luca. It was released on October 11, 2013,] and had its premiere when shown at the 2013 New York Film Festival.
9. Las Vegas
Release date: 29/11
Three sixty-something friends take a break from their day-to-day lives to throw a bachelor party in Las Vegas for their last remaining single pal.
Billy (Michael Douglas), Paddy (Robert De Niro), Archie (Morgan Freeman) and Sam (Kevin Kline) have been best friends since childhood. So when Billy, the group’s sworn bachelor, finally proposes to his thirty-something (of course) girlfriend, the four head to Las Vegas with a plan to stop acting their age and relive their glory days. However, upon arriving, the four quickly realize that the decades have transformed Sin City and tested their friendship in ways they never imagined. The Rat Pack may have once played the Sands and Cirque du Soleil may now rule the Strip, but it’s these four who are taking over Vegas.
10. Snowpiercer
Release date: 29/11
Snowpiercer is a South Korean sci-fi action thriller film based on the French graphic novel Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette. The film is directed by Bong Joon-ho, and co-written by Bong and Kelly Masterson. The film stars Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Go Ah-sung, Jamie Bell, Ewen Bremner, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, and Ed Harris.
The film is set in a future where a runaway experiment to stop global warming has caused an ice age that killed nearly all life on the planet. The only survivors are the inhabitants of the ‘Snowpiercer’, a massive train that travels around the planet and is powered by a perpetual-motion engine. Over time a class system evolves on the train, with the elites inhabiting the front of the train and poor inhabiting the back of the train. Tired of their poor living conditions, the riders in the back revolt, attempting to seize control of the engine, which the elites in the front consider sacred.
T. Van