2026 watched

Somehow, more engrossing than any horror or comedy movie I've watched recently. At least the first half. The poster is a bit ill-fitting...

The middle drags, just because it doesn't contain synchronized and stylish skiing scenes. The basic plot has probably been done in a thousand other movies by now.

I wouldn't be surprised if some specific details of this inspired "Tokyo Love Story": sports department presentation which he didn't have to go to turns into it being necessary that he speeds to get there, he's a bad boyfriend, maybe Tomoyo Harada's character's lack of personality even inspired Rika to have one!

Shoutout to my dad for sitting through something with some subtitles

Didn't realize before watching that this has the same plot as a segment of Kwaidan... In fact, that segment was shown in my film class in college. The best part was the scenery changing behind them when she turns into the snow woman. The most solidly constructed thing I've watched on this list so far. 

I liked each individual part, except I did expect more of an emphasis on investigation? In my opinion, this suffers from setting up a bit too many plot threads/red herrings. I guess I didn't expect the resolution, but a resolution also has to be satisfying.. One of the very few times that I think I would've preferred a metaphysical explanation.

This movie was darker than the previous one, and it also (in my opinion) has a distractingly bad reveal at the end. But the first hour alone makes this the strongest movie I've seen this year so far. It touches on some things that you have to tread lightly with.

Its OK but I wasn’t really invested in the story or even her journey. Some things that happened  were entirely too convenient..

Didn't like it

I have to say 'yes' everytime my father suggests watching an asian film

Its fine for what it is, I guess I prefer the approach of sticking close to a game feeling as opposed to trying to make it resemble a standard narrative movie. Not too interesting though. Also, Nino is old now. Does that make me old?

Edit Oct 6th: I've seen the recent Resident Evil movie and it has the same 'am I ready to be a father?' setup/framing. It definitely fits this film better, having a child character to interact with, and to put trust into. That movie, I would say it doesn't work nearly as well, especially because of the interactions he ends up having with kids/infants in that much darker scenario..

I had no idea that there was so much animal abuse, kanopy didn't give me a warning about anything. I've avoided movies for years for having a few seconds of animal abuse, or even 'possibly real' animal abuse!... But I liked the tone, the main character's 'personality', the location, and the ending(s)

Doesn't really come together for me. I like that it had some "meat" to it/interpretable artsy things, but the characters/plot/tone wasn't working for me. If you want to see lee kang sheng shotgun with hot chicks this is for you I guess. And the story about the hotline worker did help this movie, it would be more boring without it.

Its so surreal, I remember hearing about this movie as a teenager, before I even joined this website! It was a crowdpleaser/pop movie and I didn't dislike it.

I wasn't ever bored, and it was interesting to see Karasawa Toshiaki and Sorimachi Takashi together in something after watching them in "Love Complex". And obviously the main reason why I watched this was for Kimutaku and the premise of "The story of a few kamikaze pilots".

But I can understand why this film isn't very popular. It doesn't have any particularly strong emotional beats for the characters. There's a few scenes near the end, of course, but I felt that this movie was way more lighthearted than it probably should've been. Some of the jazzy-pop music included in this just made it seem kind of 'cute'. Which most WW2 movies are usually not going for..

Was kind of a pain in the neck to find a version that wasn't 144p and hardcoded with both Chinese and English subs (and even that version takes effort to find).

These kind of shows are usually not very palatable. In fact I think the title, poster, and the premise/concept really didn't interest me. The first episode also goes pretty far, but then the show never gets that close to risque ever again. Which, I was definitely a little uncomfortable sitting through the first episode, but in retrospect that feels almost like false advertising(?)..

The other options for a gay/lesbian miniseries are either set in a high school, weird comedies involving 'idol' worship, very slow 'atmospheric' shows with no real plot, or just convoluted crime dramas. So I will be sticking with the office/office-politics flavor for now. I'm glad little to no time was spent on the actual explanation of their day-to-day work, I especially hate when shows have an 'interesting' job that they integrate into the plot, which doesn't seem realistic for such a small team to accomplish, "Chaser Game W" and "Senpai, This Can't Be Love" for example. I haven't seen a truly good one in awhile, last time I was blown away was 2022's "Old Fashioned Cupcake"... Maybe that benefited from being so short?

The show wasn't bad, the first few episodes were interesting, but I felt like it was coasting for the last half. The cinematography and scriptwriting weren't spectacular, but thats me grading it against an average drama and not some of the low quality gay dramas I've sat through before. I appreciate the semi-serious, but not dark, tone. But I've also always preferred that a will-they won't-they doesn't start out the gate with a hookup between the two characters.

I adored how this was shot, and although I've seen only 2 episodes of Bayside Shakedown years ago (and didn't even know/remember Yusuke Santamaria was in it), it was fun. It was especially gripping when it was coming towards a train car and they had to push everyone into the next traincar.. One of the best i've seen this year.

Watched dubbed. Another suggestion by my father. I didn't really like this, but it isn't the kind of movie I find interesting anyways. Someday I'll get to watching "Train to Busan"...

The ubiquity of training-centered military/sport genre movies means that just from a glance at the poster or summary you can accurately predict every plot beat in the film. Yet, I still expected to get a bit more out of this. I actually think that this movie would've benefited from an even bigger/stronger romance subplot, or maybe I’m grasping at straws.. I was unfamiliar with the actor who plays the main character in this, and I shallowly want to note that he is quite manly/handsome, as opposed to the prettyboy types that seems to be in everything else I decide to watch.