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The latest Harry Potter installment, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince broke the midnight record and made $22m from midnight screenings. The sixth Harry Potter movie made $104m in total for its first day release. In my opinion, it is bound to become one of the top 10 highest earning films pretty soon.

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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sequel to Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and is the sixth film based on J. K. Rowling’s novel.

SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince"

The film starts with the Death Eaters attacking Diagon Alley and a Muggle bridge causing havoc.

In the midst of the chaos, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is reading a newspaper in a subway cafe. When Harry is about to pick up a waitress he flirts with from work, Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) arrives and they Apparate into a Muggle village to locate Horace Slughorn, who has been hiding from the Death Eaters by camouflaging as an armchair. Dumbledore asks Horace to come back and teach at Hogwarts School as later, it is revealed that Professor Slughorn has a very important piece of memory about Tom Riddle, the boy who turned into Lord Voldemort.

Bellatrix and Draco Malfroy’s mother, Narcissa are seen entering Severus Snape’s (Alan Rickman) home as the Dark Lord has chosen Draco Malfoy to perform a task for him. They perform the Unbreakable Vow so Snape has to swear that he will look after Draco, and should Draco fail to accomplish the task, Snape will do it for him.

In Hogwarts, a girl named Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave) flirts with Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and later on becomes his girlfriend. Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), whom has fallen for Ron for a long time gets heartbroken.

In potion class, Harry finds a Potions textbook belonging to the Half-Blood Prince. With the book, Harry manages to excel in class and as a reward, Slughorn gives Harry a luck potion called “Felix Felicis”. It is revealed later that Severus Snape is the Half-Blood Prince.

Meanwhile, Dumbledore gets Harry to convince Slughorn to give up the important piece of memory he is holding related to Tom Riddle. Harry finally manages to persuade Slughorn for the significant piece of memory by using the “Felix Felicis” potion, it is revealed that in the early years, Voldemort has split his soul into seven pieces, called Horcruxes, in which two are already destroyed. They then Apparate to a cave to get the third Horcrux only to have almost killed by Inferi (dead people who reassembles Gollum) before Dumbledore summons rings of fire to kill the Inferi.

When Dumbledore and Harry returns to Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts, Draco enters the room when Harry is told to hide. Death Eaters have also just arrived at Hogwarts via the passage at Vanishing Cabinet that Draco has been working on. Draco says he is chosen to kill Dumbledore but he chickens out and Snape kills Dumbledore instead.

Harry, Hermione and Ron will take time off from Hogwarts next year in order to find the remaining Horcruxes.

Overall, the sixth installment of the Harry Potter movie focuses more on the storyline instead of pure action. Romance also prospers between Ron and Hermione, and Harry and Ginny. Though the movie ends with a sad note, I’m sure Harry Potter fans will love this movie as much as they love the first one.

My ratings: 7 out of 10.

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New Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince international teaser trailer. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be in theater on July 17, 2009.

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