2025

honestly i have been burnt out on movies for a few weeks now, always disappointed after finishing anything. this one was a pretty good distraction.

takeshi kaneshiro is so cute in this. i absolutely loved the segment of this movie that is just the retelling of chan kar-fu's novel. i enjoyed this much more than the previous kelly chen/takeshi kaneshiro movie "lost and found" from 1996.

the concept unnerved me when i was fifteen... i kind of wish this was just a more realitsic drama with a fantastical element of the stairs

you just have to love HK movies... this film looks great and is fast-paced and fun. also i like the brief dance sequences and the action set pieces, and i always adore when the soundtrack with pop/rock songs isn't just 80s synth

also i don't know why its tagged gay male lead, the 2nd/3rd most important character is gay with no ambiguity  but the main/lead character is potrayed by chow yun-fat and his characters not gay

saw the gorgeous poster and the on-the-nose title and decided to give it a try. some of the set design and imagery was as ephemeral and beautiful as the hourglass sanatorium. fairly good

the title slowly becomes an insignificant premies as the 'plot' carries on. i really admire the poster, but its yet another case of the beautiful dress on the cover/poster not being anywhere in the movie. the appeal was a wide assortment of action setpieces.

i was caught off guard and disturbed by the ripping off of the high school girl's uniform, and cat death. someone had to mention it.

 i adored rika, even though in some moments she's annoying, self-destructive, selfish, and is both naive, and pretending to be naive, sometimes flopping on that during a single conversation.. i was torn up inside seeing what i would want to be her 'happy ending' pop up in episode 4. and although she made a good decision in the very end, it was a painful last ~4 episodes seeing her pretend that she has unyielding faith in what she's saying.. shes the only character besides possibly mikami's classmate that i cared about...

not a terrible way to spend 70 minutes. i have a soft spot for single-location movies and some of the details about what just-so-happened to be sitting in the house was interesting. it would probably feel more fulfilling watching it when i was younger and less familiar with the setup, but what can you do.

i'm not a huge fan of watching kpop behind the scenes stuff, but i feel like you can get just as much out of a music video behind the scenes clip, where they just talk about how they've been awake for 30+ hours waiting for each next shot to be set up... 

to not sugarcoat it, i think that my enjoyment was majorly hindered by the scenes irrelevant to the main plot. i.e. i hated every scene with koji yakusho, especially the egg yolk scene. truly i felt sick watching it. 

the majority of the non-sequitor scenes were about how food can be made sexual, (or is inherently sexual,) and then to have the ending/credits be an extremely slow extreme zoom-in on a woman actively breastfeeding, as if to say that its the pinnacle of food being sexy... just not my cup of tea.

also, theres some device in this movie thats also in marquis de sade, its something that involves a man opening his mouth wide as some kind of steam is being pushed into his mouth via some glass mechanism. i have no idea how to figure out what this is or what the purpose is...

not a bad movie at all, doesn't overstay its welcome in any aspect/subplot.  *BUT* since every little piece of the future/second day is choreographed in the first day, and most of the lines in the script aren't trying to stray too far from the premise, its hard to 'forget' what the movie sets up. 

the movie is much more simple than other spinning plates movies. for example, the movie "nosies off" must have a screenplay that's at least 5x as long as this one, to the point that it would be understandable if the viewer of that movie forgot about certain things that were set up as "could go wrong", until they actually did go wrong.

There's 2 kinds of endings I despise: "I'm Thinking of Ending Things"-type, and "Sora Kara Furu Ichioku no Hoshi"-type. They did give you big hints as early as the 2nd/3rd episode as to the nature of the ending, but I thought that maybe there'd be more plot developments or characters to show up and complicate things. Or maybe the show didn't  need any of that, and I just hoped that they would avoid doing 'that'.

Also, wish it had more than 2 songs in the score.

never thought i'd have more than one tv series on a list per year, so i'm feeling accomplished.  (even though i started both of the last two series 16+ months before i got around to finishing them, oops)

i actually started watching this show just a few days after watching michael mann's deja vu, which also used "don't worry baby" by the beach boys. i guess that song can trick me into liking anything.

When I was about fifteen, I was in love with the movie Blue Spring, primarily for the music and the visuals. I just loved the experience of watching it, as you would with a music video.  Considering the fact that at fifteen I wouldn't even try to watch something that came out before the year 2000, I can't say that I would've enjoyed this back then on the same level. But watching it now, I believe it has the same effect on me. I was tickled by the cinematography, especially during the racing, I loved seeing the elegant house set(s), and I thought the background music/sound design was perfect. At the same time, I can't say I cared a bit about the main character or his decisions.

If you're interested in seeing it, I recommend seeing it in the highest quality possible. Features the same bar set as in the show I just finished, Sailor Suit Machine Gun. -1 point for the sincere line, delivered in English, "He's right about one thing, I am a thief. I came to steal your heart"

One of my favorite decisions in the movie was having the compulsive liar introduce the patients to the protagonist, another high point is Lim Soo-jung's makeup look throughout this, which was both freaky and adorable. From my perspective, bits of this movie were quite clumsily thought out. For example, the location that the ending takes place - how exactly is that allowed? And given that there is really no resolution, I'm a bit concerned with how far he's taking his acceptance of her 'condition'. It was interesting that the movie avoided having anyone say "you're not a cyborg". 

I enjoyed the last 30 minutes the most. There's one tiny, tiny subplot that I feel like went a bit too over-the-top, ethically, and the message wasn't very coherent. 

I thought it wrapped up perfectly... make sure you don't watch the post-credits scene.

i was only slightly butthurt about the '[we're] fixed' comment in regards to the characters who stop being butch/effeminate the second they hook up.

someone went in with the concept of a reprise/remake of "some like it hot" and decided that, no chemistry needed to be developed between any of the characters, the men involved needed to be strangers when they meet, and it needed a gay rape attempt. its just no fun. what this movie needed most, was more development between the nightclub performers and the imposter main characters. and also they needed to change every single aspect of the gay character to make him likeable if they wanted us to care about him. all of the passport stuff is filler and could've been offscreen.

Not a fan of the feeling Kiyoshi Kurasawa creates.

There's a specific scene in here that was brutal, absolutely loved the score. The premise was up my alley, and I really liked the system of rules that was brought into the plot. I am very glad I was able to finally watch this, after having it on my radar for a few years.

I liked it, was surprised at how much fake blood it had at one specific part, and the portrayal of the fat woman was more sympathetic than I'm used to seeing in Korean movies...

( way better than bugonia... but i hate yorgos lanthimos )

watched dubbed

I wasn't blown away by wishing stairs, but it was a definite improvement over this one...

I wish other people watched this besides me and the person who subtitled it. Maybe that person even had a proofreader to talk about it with. Maybe. 

Its an adult drama with no comedy, only one hammy actor, and a mystery that is brought up in episode one ("what is the point of this set-up?") and not thoroughly addressed or even really built upon until the penultimate episode and finale. I probably only powered through this because it was so short, but now I find myself thinking that there should've been a little more flesh to the story. Maybe the main character had a friend at some point in her life, maybe have her feel a little sorry on a moral level for the inciting incident, give more of a backstory/perspective for Yoneko.

 Every woman in this is incredibly gorgeous.

I wasn't close to being bored at any point, but I won't remember a single plot beat or shot from this film within a week or two.  Mostly good pacing and its the perfect length.