Review of HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2025): The Dilemma with Dragons

June 16, 2025

Hiccup (Mason Thames) was the son of Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler), the heroic chieftain of their Viking village of Berk. Unlike other villages, the big pest problem of Berk did not ordinary bugs. Instead, they are dragons who fly into their fields grabbing their sheep and burning down their homes. Hiccup was told that his mother had died because of a dragon. He grew up wanting to be able to kill dragons. However, he was physically incapable of doing so. 

In 2010, Dreamworks released "How to Train Your Dragon," an animated feature about the friendship between a Viking boy and a Night Fury dragon, based on the 2003 novel and book series of the same title by Cressida Cowell. A commercial and critical success, this film launched its own franchise, including two sequels (2014 and 2019). This year, Dreamworks followed Disney's lead and produced its own live action remake of this modern classic.

The first film was written and directed by Chris Sanders and Will Deblois. Deblois alone wrote and directed this remake. (Meanwhile, Sanders worked on and released the live-action remake of his 2002 animated film "Lilo and Stitch" for Disney.)  Also back from the original films was Gerald Butler. He once voiced the character of Stoick the Vast, an important source of dramatic conflict in the story. Now, we see Butler himself perform on the big screen. 

Having live actors led to more emotional engagement between characters. Scenes of dorky Hiccup (Thames in a winsome performance) and his stern father had a lot more depth, especially in the third act. Astrid (a pretty, badass Nico Parker) was given more screen action, including a scene in a dragon's mouth. Snoutlout (Gabriel Howell) even had a subplot with his father not in the original. A mystic Elder Gothi (Naomi Wirthner) was prominently featured. 

This live action remake followed the animated original loyally -- practically scene for scene and line for line. This new version ran for 125 minutes, while the original ran for only 98 minutes. The major difference that caused this difference in running time was that the human versus dragon action sequences were much more prolonged. All the 3D CGI dragons now look a lot larger, more menacing, less cartoonish-looking than the original animated dragons. 8/10

Review of ONLY WE KNOW: Finding a Fulfilling Friendship

June 14, 2025

Betty (Charo Santos) had been married to her husband William (Al Tantay) for 33 years when they separated 12 years ago. They did not have any children.  Betty dedicated all her time to being a college professor since then. When time came for her to retire from teaching, Betty had more free time to pursue her passion for painting still life, and working on her gardening. Betty's best friends were couple Cora (Shamaine Buencamino) and Bert (Joel Saracho).

Living across the street from Betty's house in the same private village was Ryan (Dingdong Dantes). He is a structural engineer whose life had been dealt with a cruel blow with the sudden death of his wife Sofia (Max Collins). It has now been one year since Sofia passed away, but Ryan is still haunted by her memory. One day, Ryan saw Betty struggling with her heavy shopping bags. He promptly went over to offer her assistance. 

And from there, a fulfilling friendship would develop between these two neighbors, who did not know yet at that time that they were lonely. Based on her past work like "Meet Me in St. Gallen" (2018), "Sid and Aya: Not a Love Story" (2018), "On Vodka, Beers and Regrets" (2020), and "Five Breakups and a Romance" (2023), writer-director Irene Villamor is truly a master of bittersweet romance films.  She weaves her magic again here. 

Ever since the beginning of her career with "Itim" (1976), Ms. Charo Santos possessed that unmistakably radiant screen presence that illuminated any scene that she was in. She can effortlessly draw us to Betty's side and root for her to get through any challenge she faced. Santos was always classy in her portrayal of Betty, no sleazy cougar vibes at all despite Dingdong Dantes being 25 years younger than her.    

Dantes yielded centerstage to Santos for most of the film. But as he was helping Betty, Ryan was being healed as well without him realizing it.  Dantes was given an intense acting moment in that scene when Ryan read Betty's lab results. This sent him reeling on a prolonged anxiety attack haunted by the day of Sofia's death.  Villamor, with Pao Orendain's camera, worked dizzying wonders in that scene, bringing us all inside Ryan's traumatic experience. 

Villamor kept the relationship between Betty and Ryan very subtle. We were kept guessing whether there was indeed a romance brewing between them or not. We all felt like Cora when she first saw Betty and Ryan together -- intrigued by the mystery, yet there was an breathtaking thrill about them. It was sheer directorial skill how Villaflor kept this uncertainty going for the whole final act, and still keep us guessing all the way up to the ending. 9/10

Review of BALLERINA: Fighting as a Female

June 5. 2025

When Eve was still a little girl (Victoria Comte), their house was attacked by a band of assassins attempting to kill her father Javier (David Castaneda). The killers were led by the Chancellor (Gabriel Byrne), who was angry with Javier because he went rogue against their organization. The Chancellor gave Javier a pistol with a single bullet and offered him the choice to shoot himself so his daughter lives, or to shoot him and both of them will die.

12 years later, Eve (Ana de Armas) was training as a ballerina under the Director (Anjelica Huston). The Director was also the head of the Roma Ruska, an underground organization of assassins, and Eve was also training in their deadly trade. Eve was taught by her trainer Nogi (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) to "fight like a girl," meaning to take advantage of her femaleness in order to get the upper hand over her bigger, stronger opponents. 

The title "Ballerina" is preceded by "From the World of John Wick," as it is the fifth film of that franchise. In "John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum," when Wick first met the Director (also played by Huston),  a ballerina named Rooney was on the stage failing her pirouettes. Rooney was played by Unity Phelan before, but now, she is named Eve and played by de Armas. Scenes of Wick walking down the stairs and being branded at the back in that film were revisited here.

Willowy Ana de Armas may seem like an unlikely assassin of deadly skill. But, as this is the John Wick universe, so we need to suspend our disbelief big time in order to enjoy watching her plow through one horde of pro assassins after another. In the third act, all the residents of an entire town were all after her, and still she prevailed. The way Eve survived being bodily hurled and slammed here, she might as well be made of steel. Her fighting style did not really reflect her ballet training though, not sure why she had to be one. 

Aside from the non-stop bone-crushing fights, fans of the John Wick franchise will enjoy seeing the New York Continental Hotel again, along with its owner Winston Scott (Ian McShane) and concierge Charon (the late Lance Reddick in his final movie appearance). Of course, the highlight was seeing the baba yaga John Wick himself in a fight in the final fiery half-hour, though ever the gentleman, Reeves never stole de Armas's thunder. There are three more John Wick films in production after this, and yes, we are excited about them! 7/10

Review of KARATE KID: LEGENDS: Synergistic Styles

June 1, 2025

Mr. Han (Jackie Chan) ran a big kung fu school in Beijing. One of his best students was his grand-nephew Li (Ben Wang), a young man troubled by memories of his elder brother's death. One day, Li's physician mother Dr. Fong (Ming-Na Wen) brought a reluctant Li to New York City where she had been accepted to work. One of Li's first friends was Mia (Sadie Stanley), daughter of Victor Lipani (Joshua Jackson), a former boxer who now owned a pizza parlor. 

This film continues the story of the "Karate Kid" franchise -- a spin-off sequel. It started with a story which Mr. Miyagi told Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) back in 1986. Apparently, Miyagi's ancestor was a fisherman whose boat got washed away by a storm all the way to China. There, the Han family rescued him, and later taught him the Chinese martial art of kung-fu.  When Miyagi went back to his home in Okinawa, Japan, he developed the fighting techniques further and called it Karate.  

Ralph Macchio was Daniel in the first three films (1984, 1986 and 1989), but not in the 1994 "The Next Karate Kid" (with Hilary Swank) nor the 2010 reboot "The Karate Kid" (with Jaden Smith). In the last film, Jackie Chan played the kung-fu master of bullied boy Dre (played by an 11 year old Jaden Smith) in Beijing. Macchio would return to play Daniel vis-a-vis his old rival Johnny (William Zabka) in the series "Cobra Kai" streaming on Netflix from 2021 to 2025. 

Macchio is now a young-looking 63 year old, and playing Daniel LaRusso remains to be what he is best known for. Chan is still youthfully energetic now at 71 years old, and it had always been a pleasure watching him kung-fu fighting on the big screen. Mr. Han flew to L.A. to request LaRusso to teach his ward Li the Miyagi-style of karate, in order make Li ready to face the upcoming underground fight competition -- Five Borough's Tournament.  

The original story about a boy taught by his mentors to get ready for a big fight was still very much there. Ben Wang's Li was a capable kung-fu fighter who already had a spectacular dragon kick move from the start, but he had to learn new techniques from Han and LaRusso ("two branches, one tree") before he can face his big bully Conor Day (Aramis Knight). Even if the final outcome was obvious, the fight scenes were still very much worth the watch. 6/10.