Narnia

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe- interesting movie and certainly a must watch of the year. Of course, I shall not reveal anything about the story, just dun want to spoil the story for those who have not watched it yet. But there are a few things which I noticed throughout the movie which I think I should blog it here.

1. The usual dumb bad guys
Well, a brief info before I begin. In Narnia, there was a prophecy that the our four protagonists, two sons of Adams and two daughters of Eve will appear in Narnia to end the Witch's reign. Ok, in the story, the Witch had the chance to stop the prophecy from fulfilling and she didn't. It happens when she had Edmund held captive. This is stupid and dumb. If I'm a villian, I dun even need to finish off all the four in order to stop the fulfillment of the prophecy. All I need is to make sure that the number will never tally up. That's all!!! Dun anyone realise how simple is that, rather than going through all the trouble and ending up fulfilling the prophecy yourself. I'll leave this for you all to figure out.

2. Transition of the story
Ok, the mere existence of the dumb bad guys does not really affect the quality of the whole story and movie, though it seems dumb. There is something which I like about the movie itself, which is the transition of the setting from familiar grounds to fantasy land. The first thing which strucked me when the movie started was how 'real' the initial setting was. London kena air raided and children being sent away to foreign family for adoption. As a history student who has studied in some details about the Battle of London during WWII, this is indeed a very familiar ground to me. And of course, the setting gradually transited from the real world to the fantasy world called Narnia. But what strucked me even more about the transition is how the four children were brought away from one war to get involved in another. As someone who had done some literary appreciation and film appraisal before, definitely an aspect of the story which is rather strucking.

3. Parallels
Of course, there are meanings and parallels to the story. One aspect of this I would like to bring out is the sacrifice of the Great Lion Aslan for Edmund. A brief info for those who dun know the story. Aslan offered himself as sacifice to the Witch in order to save Edmund (details pls watch the movie) and after being killed by the Witch on the Stone Table, he was resurrected by sunrise. Again, coming from a literary perspective, and C.S Lewis has never hide this, this is a parallel with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to redeem mankind from sin, as according to the gospels (its historical reliability can be checked out through some simple research). Obvious enough for those who know it, insignificant for those who dun bother about it. But there are more parallels and if I am to discuss them all, I might as well tell you the whole story.

4. Favourite character
Unfortunately, my favourite character is not Aslan, not the Witch (though I think she is quite good in her role), not any of the four children but one of the centuars called Orisis (hopefully I spelled correctly). Well, he's the coolest, with the two swords on his hand. Robert actually agreed with me and well... he's really cool. Okok, this is just some trival for you only. No need to take it so seriously.

Well, all in all, this is certainly a good movie to watch. I got nothing to complain about, other than the dumb villians, but then it's got to do with C.S Lewis. What the production team did was just to bring the story onto screen for our viewing pleasure. I would certainly compare the movie with the first two episode of Harry Potter (they are the best of the four currently) and I dun have enough thumbs for them. Andrew Adamson and his team certainly brought the world of Narnia alive to us. In conclusion it deserves at least 4.5 out of 5 (note that I said 'at least'). A must watch for all movie fans. Well, next stop: A Chinese Tall Story... if I managed to find someone to watch with me.

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