Folks, let’s get wet!

Not since Waterboys has there been a Japanese movie showing such cute boys in such skimpy trunks. Dive!! takes you into the world of competitive diving. But it could have competitive orange peeling for all we care, so long as the competitors do it in such sexy Speedos.

Besides Dive!!, the other film worth watching is the terrific thriller Angels & Demons, a prequel to The Da Vinci Code. Based on the novel by Dan Brown, it stars Tom Hanks as a symbologist racing against time to solve the mysteries of the secret society and save the Vatican City.

Also opening is the respectable Hollywood adaptation of K-horror A Tale of Two Sisters. Retitled The Uninvited, it is one of the best remakes of an Asian film to arrive in a long time.

And finally, there’s Fireball Muay Thai Dunk, a silly action movie that obviously hopes that by putting two of men’s favourite things together – basketball and martial arts – it could be a hit.

Well, think again.

Dive!!

In Japanese with subtitles

Oh… my… gaawwd… Look at these slender Japanese boys walking around in teeny weeny trunks. If you happen to be a gay man, it’s enough to keep your loins warm throughout for the whole movie. Pardon our frankness and lack of inhibition, but the lack of clothes on these cute boys frankly cannot go unmentioned. This is one film whose ticket and DVD sales should soar on the strength of the pink dollar alone.

Dive!! – the two exclamation marks are absolutely necessary, in our opinion – stars doe-eyed twink Kento Hayashi as an ordinary boy who is hooked on the sport of diving. After he observes young Sosuke Ikemaytsu, son of a diving coach, execute the perfect dive, he decides to join the Mizuki Diving Club to train alongside Sosuke. A third diver, the young and wild Junpei Mizobata, also joins the club. Hmmm… threesome… yum…

However, the club’s survival is in question. Unless it is able to produce an Olympic-standard diver within a year’s time, the club will be closed. Dive!! tracks the boys’ trials and tribulations (and trunks) as they work hard to make the grade.

Based on a popular Japanese novel series for teenagers, Dive!! is earnestly directed by Naoto Kumazawa whose keen understanding of athletic ambition as well as teenage struggles serves the movie well. The brevity of the swimming trunks aside, the movie paints a very convincing portrait of the sportsmen and their families. The diving scenes are quite spectacular too.

A must-see for gay men, straight women and sports lovers. Did we miss anyone out?

Angels & Demons

Let’s face it: The 2006 adaptation of The Da Vinci Code was a slow, awkward and boring movie. Its billion-dollar box-office success was largely due to the popularity of Dan Brown’s unputdownable novel. Now the new adaptation of the novel’s prequel Angels & Demons is whole different animal altogether – it is fast-paced, well-scripted and skillfully-directed. In short, a bona fide hit.

Directed by Ron Howard again, Angels & Demons is a tightly-wound thriller that centers on Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) who tries to uncover the mysteries of a secret society called the Illuminati after it kidnaps four cardinals and threatens to blow up Rome. Using his knowledge of symbols, languages and history, Robert unravels the Illuminati’s plot to take over the Vatican City and replace the Pope with a nefarious leader…

Now Ron has obviously taken note of the criticisms hurled at The Da Vinci Code (“Dull! Plodding! Paris looks drab!”) to avoid repeating his mistakes. Not only does Angels & Demons move very swiftly, it bathes the movie’s locations ( Rome and other Rome-like settings) with a golden aura that evokes the splendor of the city and its art.

Cinematographer Salvatore Totino should be credited for the film’s romantic look, as should screenwriter David Koepp (Panic Room) and Akiva Goldsman (I Am Legend) for the fine script.

For his not-particularly-challenging performance, Tom Hanks received the biggest salary in the history of Hollywood – reportedly in the region of US$35million plus a share of the profits. Now considering that Angels & Demons will probably do better than its plodding Da Vinci, that’ll come up to a very tidy sum indeed.

Hollywood rarely gets its adaptation of Asian horror right (see The Eye, Shutter, Pulse, One Missed Call, Dark Waters, Ring 2, Mirrors) but its remake of Korea’s A Tale of Two Sisters almost hits the mark.

As one might expect, the surreal tone of the original film by Kim Ji Woon has been sucked out so as not to leave supposedly-unimaginative American audiences scratching their heads. But much of the plot’s mystery has been left intact and, sometimes, impressively reinvented, so the results will probably please horror junkies as well as fans of the original film.

Emily Browning plays a young girl who is warded in a hospital for psychiatric treatment after seeing her mother killed in a fire. When her doctor concludes that she is well again, she leaves the hospital and returns home only to find that her father is having a relationship with the nanny.

Reunited with her elder sister (Arielle Kebbel), the pair suspects the nanny of murdering their mother to be with their father. They hatch a plot for revenge…

A watchable adaptation that has already made an impressive $58million worldwide.

In Thai with subtitles

A ridiculous action movie that mixes basketball with muay thai, Fireball Muay Thai Dunk stars Preeti Barameeanant as a man who wakes up from a coma to find that his brother has been killed in a deadly game of basketball.

Called “fireball”, the illegal sport pits two muay thai/basketball teams against each other. Players can use martial arts and weapons – even murder – to stop the opposing team from putting the ball in the hoop.

Preeti joins the sport to avenge his brother’s death. Stupid, stupid, stupid.