EASTFIST

Yojimbo (1961) Review

By Chongchen Saelee

“Yojimbo” is my second favorite Akira Kurosawa film after “Seven Samurai”. Yojimbo means bodyguard in Japanese. It may seem like star Toshiro Mifune is playing the same nameless archetype, but they are indeed two different characters. In “Yojimbo”, Mifune plays a nameless wandering ronin (a masterless samurai) who is pushing 40 years old and stone broke looking for odd jobs or killing men for rice and sake. He wanders into a small village where two rivals gangs are fighting for control over the silk and sake productions.

The movie opens with the nameless ronin wandering aimlessly, he even picks up a branch and tosses it and whichever direction it points to is where he’s going. Along the way, he spots a young man arguing with his father about wanting to become a “gambler” because they make money, drink sake and dress in nice silk. He wants to live it up and die young, not live at home and work on a farm eating porridge, against his father’s wishes. In movie storytelling, it’s a small useless scene… or is it?

After a sniveling crooked constable (the equivalent of the town sheriff) alerts him how to make some quick ryo (money in ancient Japan), he goes to meet up with a local big shot. When asked what his name is, being nameless, he peers out into an open field of mulberry grass and names himself after it as “Kuwabatake Sanjuro” or Sanjuro for short. (more…)

Stuck CD tray

How To Fix Locked CD Tray Caused By Cyberlink PowerDVD 17 for Windows 7

Copyright © 2019 By Chongchen Saelee

If you’ve previously used Cyberlink PowerDVD 17 (or previous versions) to watch your Blu-ray disc movies, you might encounter a problem the next time you use the program again when you seemingly cannot open your CD tray. The CD tray might eject partially and then quickly return into the slot. It’s as though gremlins have hijacked your CD tray and messing with you!

Fear not, it’s not a virus. It’s definitely not gremlins. It’s because PowerDVD 17 has stored some data in it’s cache system thinking a disc is still in the CD tray. I assume it does this for DRM (digital rights management) purposes, to prevent users from copying the movies. Anyway, while that data is still in PowerDVD 17’s cache, you won’t be able to get that CD tray open. So you need to CLEAR THE CACHE. (more…)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)
Blu-ray Review

Directed By Francis Ford Coppola

Starring Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Anthony Hopkins

Review By Chongchen Saelee

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) Blu-ray Screen Capture – Gary Oldman plays the tortured soul Dracula.

It’s that time of year, folks. Halloween is upon us. And it’s my favorite holiday. When Halloween rolls around, I like to enjoy this version Dracula and A Nightmare Before Christmas, among some other select horror movies. There’s just something special about this version of Dracula, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. It’s a throwback to the old school Dracula movies before it, but it’s also very stylish and unique. (more…)

Solution: HPMediaSmart DVD on HP Laptops stop playing Blu-ray discs
By Chongchen Saelee

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-Systems-and-Software/Hp-mediasmart-dvd-play-the-avengers-blu-ray-disc/m-p/1851997/highlight/true#M109828

See, after 2012, 20th Century Fox slapped a bunch of their newly authored Blu-rays with BD+ and some other fancy DRM (digital rights management) techniques. So in order for you to play their content, you need to use their authorized firmware aka Blu-ray software players.

Unfortunately, if you’re an owner of an older Hewlett-Packard laptop who is stuck using their built-in media player software such as HPMediaSmart DVD, and you don’t have software upgrade or update support anymore, then you might be SOL or forced to buy a new commercial Blu-ray software that will play newer titles (Who has USD$100 lying around these days, especially to watch Blu-rays that have been collecting dust on our shelves for more than half a decade?).

HP, however, provided HP laptop owners with a FREE STANDARD VERSION of PowerDVD 10. The file is ~150 MB. (more…)