a religious production with rich anti-colonial flavour
This film caught me unawares. I was not expecting a Christian production from *checks notes* Jesuit Communications to be of this high quality. But that's because Gomburza "isn't just about church politics", to lift a line from one of the characters.The premise of the movie is relatively straightforward: Filipino-born priests fight to be seen as equals to Spanish-born friars. Eventually, the priests are caught up in broader anti-colonial struggles at great peril.
However, less straightforward is the underlying question of the whole film: what is the Filipino identity? Of course, the film does not – and cannot – answer this. And to be fair, it doesn't try. It is the posing of this question that lends the film an extra layer of sophistication and makes up for some of the poorer writing in the first half.
The narrative premise and the underlying identity question do result in a split focus. The storyline revolves around José Borgos as one of the key individuals fighting to be recognised on equal footing to the Spaniards. But the storyline also diverts, often awkwardly, to follow poorly developed side characters who are meant to form an important part of the broader anti-colonial movement and theme.
Despite the meandering, Gomburza is an intellectually engaging film – at least for me as someone completely unacquainted with the history. It is also a highly emotive film, something I didn't realise until it crept up on me in the last twenty minutes and I found myself bawling my eyes out even though I thought I hadn't developed an attachment to the characters.
All in all, as someone who grew up in Anglican and Uniting Church spaces here in Aus, seeing a religious production with a powerful anti-colonial flavour is incredibly refreshing. Colour me impressed.
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Mahjong? more like Nahhh-jong
This is an odd film. The story centres around the competition between two family members vying to inherit a Mahjong house.At least I think that was the plot? Honestly, it was pretty boring so I had it on in the background while I was doing work. I'd say the first and last 20 minutes were the only vaguely interesting parts of the film.
The pacing is slow, the stakes don't really seem that high, there's little intrigue, the characters feel flat, and the eccentric humour is...well....eccentric.
Personal highlight was Betty's hair, makeup, and costuming; it gave the aesthetic a touch of retro cool.
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Romanticisation at a cruel cost
The credits roll and my first thought is: What is the Filipino take on all this?But we’ll get to that shortly.
The film Onoda is the fictionalised story of Hiroo Onoda, one of the last Japanese soldiers to surrender after the end of WWII. He was a ‘holdout’ on the Filipino island of Lubang until 1974. He survives in the jungle in denial of the war's end, losing his compatriots one by one. The story is fictionalised in more ways than one, but we’ll get to that shortly too.
At face value, the movie is surprisingly engaging given its long run time. There are also some pretty landscape shots. But that’s about all the positives I have for this piece of cinema. Buckle yourself in, folks!
Let’s start with a simple point. For a story so embedded in its Filipino geography, the decision to shoot in Cambodia feels off. And there’s good reason.
It’s a European production…with a French director…about a Japanese soldier…in the Philippines. Yes, that should raise an eyebrow.
“If you add up all those nationalities [who worked on the film], it makes the film from nowhere,” director Arthur Harari says in an interview with Asian Movie Pulse.
Yet, Cambodia was the destination of choice because Harari wanted a French-speaking film crew. Cambodia is a former French colony. It's certainly not “nowhere”. Neither is Lubang. The shoot location is only one of the ways in which colonial politics seeps into this cinematic production.
Many a filmmaker has simped for the romantic man-survives-jungle trope and Harari is no different, citing the likes of Joseph Conrad as original inspo for this movie. But it comes at cruel cost to the Filipino characters and their real-life counterparts.
I agree with James Lattimer’s assessment that the Filipino characters are used as “little more than cannon fodder”. Harari’s avoidance of the Filipino side – in terms of both geography and narrative – is a result of wilful ignorance. That is because he relies on Onoda the myth, not Onoda the man.
In true à la française style, Harari projects some kind of universalist reading of human experience onto Onoda’s story.
“I didn’t read historical books about Japan or the war,” he admits in an interview, “because the fact is that everything about Onoda’s story can be understood even if you don’t really know the general situation of the war, the Pacific War, or the history of Japan.”
In fact, Harari only read one book about Onoda, written by two Frenchmen: ‘Onoda: Seul en guerre dans la jungle’. As far as I can tell, the text seems sympathetic to Onoda’s side of the story, describing Onoda as a “prisoner of that island, of that oppressive jungle” (own translation). Heart of Darkness much? Either way, Harari mostly upholds the romantic hero image of Onoda in the film, an image which Onoda himself first established when he published his autobiography.
But even a little bit of reading about Japan or the war reveals how the Filipino people were cruelly caught in colonial crossfire. Their lives and land were used as military props and staging by the Japanese (and, of course, the Spanish and the Americans before that).
Onoda’s autobiography omits Onoda’s many gruesome murders of Lubang’s residents. Tsuda Shin, ghost-writer of Onoda’s autobiography, revealed this much when he wrote his own exposé on Onoda a couple of years after the autobiography came out.
Even now, it’s Harari’s cinematic project that receives the funding and the spotlight. Meanwhile, the Filipino side of the story struggles to see the light of day. Mia Stewart has set out to correct the record via documentary making. Her maternal relatives lived – and still live – in Lubang and experienced first-hand Onoda’s violent atrocities.
“They weren't just shootings, there were very violent killings that involved beheadings and mutilating bodies,” Stewart says in an interview with SBS.
Lack of funding means her documentary still hasn’t been released. But it’s a good cause. A myth like Onoda’s needs interrogation.
“We will never really know if Onoda knew the war was over or not. Regardless, he killed civilians. While I can't undo those deaths, I can change how we tell the story,” Stewart says.
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Stewart’s forthcoming documentary, ‘Searching for Onoda’: https://searchforonoda.com/
Stewart’s interview with SBS: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/mias-uncle-bled-to-death-she-wants-to-set-the-record-straight-about-why/qig3whkdb
Insights on Harari’s approach come from this excellent A. E Hart piece: https://www.documentary.org/online-feature/domitable-myth-three-depictions-japanese-holdout-soldier-hiroo-onoda
James Lattimer’s review: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/onoda-10000-nights-jungle-lost-filipino-wilds
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This movie could've been an email
I normally avoid watching C-dramas set during the republican era as they tend to be the most heavily lathered in government propaganda. 1911 is case in point.The film tells the story of the 1911 revolution (or the Xinhai revolution as it's otherwise known). I'm not surprised that this particular event was the subject of such hammed-up propaganda given the revolution is key to the grander political myth-making of the modern Chinese state. That said, you can still do propaganda a lot better than this??
The storyline reads like my high school essays on Bolshevik Russia. It's a boring chronology of events with political commentary slapped across the top. The music and melodrama seems to indicate that you're meant to care about the characters on screen. But you don't.
It's normally a pretty safe choice to start a story in the middle of the action – in this case the failed Second Guangzhou Uprising – but without an emotional hook to the characters, mid action scenes exhaust their oxygen pretty fast. By following a Great Men of History approach, the main characters feel flat and 2D, their entire psyche presented in the form of political speeches or the flashing of guns.
By the end of the film, you're feeling pretty uninspired. There's a lot of monologuing where you start to think the character just likes the sound of their own voice. Jackie Chan is the only one allowed to wear a leather jacket for some reason. And the two normie characters who should've been the soul of the movie are really awkwardly tacked on at the beginning and end.
tbh, it's quicker and more interesting to read the wikipedia page.
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This review may contain spoilers
#HottiesForGoodGovernance
I love bad boys. I especially love bad boys with sharp wit, dressed in black, and adorned with a fan to show that fragile masculinity is a foreign concept to them.What I don't love is when a bad boy turns out to be not a bad boy at all.
Before I go any further, I'm setting PeachBlossomGoddess' review as pre-requisite reading because their review matches exactly my thoughts and feelings on The Double. The point on which I will extrapolate is why I think the drama ultimately undermines itself.
For me, The Double fails to follow through on what is a very powerful swing during the first half of the series. And this is for two reasons. The first, as PeachBlossomGoddess describes, is weak plot lines echoing those of other dramas of this genre.
The second reason, I argue, is the second half kills a boner. No, seriously, bear with me here. This drama is horny AF. In the first half, you have a FL and a ML equal in terms of looks and wit dancing around each other as they glide from suspicion to mutual trust to deep thirsting for one another.
The appeal of the ML derives partly from mystique. He has a sharp mind and, as explicitly stated, he is projecting himself in a similar direction to the FL. Although he doesn't ultimately give up his dom position, there's enough switching between the two to keep the power dynamic infused with sexual tension. At the initial stages of the drama, we don't know the ML's background nor his intentions. The fact he appears to be a bit of a lone wolf lends him an even sexier air; the idea that he isn't at someone else's beck and call.
Or is he?
It was a disappointment to find out that the ML, all this time, has been in cahoots with the emperor. I feel like you'd be disappointed too if you were crushing on a silver-tongued, hot and brooding colleague at work only to find out they're actually the boss' right-hand man. idk about you, but that gives me the ick.
Sorry but maintaining the status quo isn't sexy. I'm not saying everyone has to be a rebel or underdog in order to be attractive. However, if you're going for the Bad Boy Hottie approach, supporting the vanilla and (assumedly?) benevolent monarch kinda takes the edge off.
Honestly, this isn't an issue unique to The Double. It's probably safe to say that, to get government approval at all, the good governance narrative must endure in these historical C-dramas. As I've mentioned in other reviews, it's a common trope to have the FL and ML protect the emperor's power (or help the 'rightful' emperor ascend), even though at no point do we see proof that the emperor actually does anything beneficial for his people.
Which is why, by the end of the series, there's not much substance to the political plot. Oh goodie, #HottiesForGoodGovernance win again. I'm shocked. How grand, the ML and FL have mellowed and now have domestic bliss. Sly smiles and black coats be damned.
And y'know what? If it wasn't for Shen Yurong losing his cool right at the end, he could've been a great Bad Boy Hottie. Uxoricide aside, I'd personally love for a morally ambivalent (and conveniently good looking) scholar to come brood in my corner. Let's hang out, shall we? I know a great graveyard.
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Finishes what Princess Agents (2017) started
I watched this drama purely for the sake of the FL and ML who most of us know from Princess Agents (PA). I was disappointed by what I saw as an unresolved ending to PA and so was very excited when the Legend of Shen Li popped up on my radar. On that point, I feel like the drama's creators had an easy job on their hands. For me at least, it seemed they could rely on the romantic chemistry pre-existing between the two lead characters (even if it was non-canon) and therefore develop a love story quickly and... weirdly?? The Chicken x Human romance gave me Bee Movie (2007) energy... Take that how you will!In the end, I was incredibly satisfied with the romantic plotline. The rest of it, however, was pretty underwhelming. The side characters are poorly developed and the fantasy conflict elements are hodgepodge. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed it as an easy watch.
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Just go watch Lost instead
Anatahan is a fictional retelling of the Japanese soldiers stranded on the Pacific island of Anatahan from 1944 to 1951. In both the real story and this one, they refused to believe the war was over.This film features a Japanese cast and has dialogue all in Japanese, but the director (who also narrates the story in English) is a white dude who lathers the story with a heap of racist exotification and sexism. All in all, it's a pretty Western production.
As such, the story ends up as a crude Lord the Flies with the one woman on the island tossed around as part of the ongoing power struggle. The narrator and the other characters spend the entire film objectifying and harassing her (also content warning for domestic violence and rape, if you plan on watching this).
It's a shame because the premise of the story is an interesting one. Holding out on a stranded island for years on end has been the premise of many of a good piece of cinema. Yet this film flops. Badly.
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It makes sense that a pen solves anxiety
After all, what Nervous Translation depicts so well is the eclectic reasoning of childhood. Following the character of Yael, I'm reminded of the way I made sense of the world at a similar age. Snippets of TV, bits of adult conversation, the intensity of school mathematics.Yael's mum, Val, juggles exhaustion due to work, keeping her own private boundaries, and looking after family. She is real. We all know a Val or we are a Val.
Nervous Translation is a slice of life. I found the pacing to be a little too slow but, then again, the emotion did creep up on me near the end. At times, it verges on surrealism, sometimes with effect, sometimes less so.
A good film with a gentle touch on life's anxieties.
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Body swap done perfectly
Normally I find body-swap to be incredibly cringe but I found myself enjoying it for the first time since watching Freaky Friday as a kid. Yu Shuxin and Dylan Wang really show off their acting skills. Because they do this very early on in the series, I was pulled in by the comedic element and kept watching from there.The romance is sweet and although the FL/ML chemistry was strong, I never fully bought it. The support characters are fun albeit predictable.
But the real downfall for me was the plotline. I felt we were just starting to get somewhere in the storyline when the drama ended – similar to how I felt Princess Agents was cut short although at least this time it was a lot less jarring.
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Arthdal Chronicles Part 2: The Sky Turning Inside Out, Rising Land
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Political intrigue with a lil bit of unionism snuck in too :)
~Review of Part II only~And here the plot thickens! We have emerged from the initial shock of invasion and now must deal with the logic of Arthdal. We are introduced to new characters and the storylines are separated for most of these six episodes.
Normally, I don't enjoy multi-perspective narratives because you almost always end up hating one storyline. But this was a rare exception for me – I thought they were interesting and well paced. It's a balancing act you don't see done effectively in cinema often enough.
Also big yay for the unionism :) We love worker solidarity.
As I mentioned in my interview for Part I, one thing I like about Arthdal Chronicles is how it treats spiritual agency. By spiritual agency, I mean the role of the spiritual world (rather than necessarily 'religion' because that's often associated with a man-made institution). This is the first piece of historical fiction I've seen to treat the spiritual world as a legitimate agent and as a political tool at the same time. Too often, historical fiction sees a belief in a spiritual world and then a political cynicism of religion to be mutually exclusive.
However, as seen in the characters of Tagon, Taheala and Tanya, they all have belief (of varying degrees) in higher powers but also will use those higher powers – and their religious institutions – for their own ends. I have a sneaking suspicion I'm probably the only person who's watched this series who cares about this point, but I'm a politics nerd, ok? (But if that does catch your interest, I do recommend reading Provincializing Europe by Dipesh Chakrabarty and where he critiques secular histories.)
Don't get me wrong, Arthdal Chronicles isn't perfect. One big downside for me was I started noticing in this section of the series that the music can be a bit lacklustre at times. I can't remember if it was in Part II or Part III but there were some awkward audio cuts too.
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A standard revenge-romance watch with some poor taste (CW: mention of rape)
Normally, I don't care about watching rich people deal with rich people problems, but there was just enough happening to pull me through all eight episodes. The strong acting provided support where the plot failed to provide substantial meat on bone. I think the writers had a good preliminary concept here but just failed to bring it to its full potential.However, what bugged me thoughout the entire show was the 'woman lies about being raped' trope. First, it falls into the sexist myth of 'if a woman claims rape, she is most likely lying'. Of course, this is not true. I don't know international stats, but in Australia, studies find, on average, only 5% of rape allegations are found to be false (and remember, most survivor/victims don't report and so aren't in the data). In other words, when someone says they've been raped, they're very very very likely to be telling the truth.
Second, the show refuses to grapple with the fact that someone can co-exist as a survivor/victim *and* as a bad human being. As far as characterisation goes, it meant the writers could draw an easy 'good/bad' line between the main characters. Thus, not only did the 'good' character not owe the 'bad' character any pity , but the 'good' character's own refusal to believe the rape claim goes unchallenged throughout all eight episodes.
Apart from that, I did enjoy this series as an easy watch. It was actually a lot of fun once I stopped taking it too seriously.
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A wholesome and fun YA drama with some refreshing originality
I was intrigued by the premise of The Underclass: a school where everything hinges on academic rankings. I had no idea what BNK48 even was until I'd finished the the series and read the other reviews here so that connection wasn't a factor for me.For me, the appeal was how the drama depicted the joy and struggle of teens figuring themselves out while simultaneously combatting unfair demands and expectations. It did so without being overtly didactic or condescending.
Although there were very recognisable clichés underpinning the entire series, there were also moments of refreshing originality in certain character dynamics and plot points. Most of the characters felt real (with the exception of the more artificial 'bad guys') and, despite the clichés, the school ranking system was actually only a slight exaggeration of my own school experience. I found a lot of my teenage-self in the characters.
That said, at times the ensemble cast felt a little unwieldy – there were perhaps one or two supporting actors too many – but the acting quality itself was of okay quality among the cast. Some of the production quality was patchy every now and then.
Overall, this is a fun Young Adult drama with a good mix of originality and reliable tropes to make it an easy watch.
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Don't take it too seriously – it's a fun mixed genre Young Adult drama
The Ghost Bride has its faults but what drew me in was the rich world-building. I've never watched anything set in historical Malaysia before nor had I ever encountered the idea of 'ghost brides' before reading the YA novel this series derives from. Those two elements plus the Underworld setting meant that I wasn't too fussed about the characters because the variety of settings became fascinating characters in their own right.I think other reviews have assessed the actual characters well. Special mention goes to Chris Wu just because of his range: I've now seen him perform beautifully in huge different roles in Ghost Bride, Autumn's Concerto, and Shards of Her. Boy, can he act!
I think it is important to remember that this is meant for a younger audience. I was more forgiving than I would normally be about the lack of depth for some of the characters because of the 'Young Adult' genre. There tends to be a certain naîve sheen that comes with that. Normally, I'd be critiquing the class politics too – notice how Amah and Lao Wong are uncritically loyal to the Pan family – but, again, it's a YA audience in mind so I can understand how it could've complicated the story too much.
Overall, this is a fun mystery/fantasy drama with a touch of romance that strays just far enough away from usual YA tropes to stand on its own two legs.
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Super problematic but still rewatched it like 6 times
I'm pretty sure this was the first non-English language drama I ever watched – I was 12 yo when Summer's Desire came out and a friend at school was watching it. I've rewatched it a handful of times since. But I think just because it was the first ever Taiwanese drama I'd watched, not because it was particularly good. I can't deny this is my most re-watched drama, hence the generous star number there.Look, be warned, this drama has heaps of problematic elements to it. Ok, I'm understating that a lot. I've given this a low rating because this drama has nothing to do with love and everything to do with coercive control. so **big content warning** there. There's no rape scenes thankfully, but it's clear that consent is not a big priority.
Also, as other reviews have noted, this drama is brimming with clichés. Turns out, it was a great drama to begin with because it introduced me to almost all the tropes of Taiwanese and C-Dramas in one go. I also think it took at least three re-watches for me to fully understand the plotline. But, let's be real, you're not watching Summer's Desire for the plot.
The chemistry between the three lead actors is really well done (somewhat despite a sub-par performance from Barbie Hsu who doesn't match her Meteor Garden efforts). The actors do pretty darn well in spite of the cliché characters and dialogue. The support actors also do well to provide emotional depth to the storyline.
The OST is great and makes up for the fact the overall audio quality is a bit patchy (this seemed to be a common thing among Taiwanese dramas of this era, I've now noticed). Just weird audio levels around dialogue and general atmosphere.
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This review may contain spoilers
Ok but i need u to understand that construction bosses are the Real Villains
School kids gang up on a classmate and torture her to the brink of death. Not because of any personal hatred but rather as the because they are the rich elite exploiting their power over others. We not only despite these teens for their cruelty but also their flippancy; their indifferent disregard for another person's life.So riddle me this: Why is Ha Do Young spared?
Sure, he at no point is involved in the violence and bullying. You might argue that he innocent, just like his daughter. I would argue otherwise. In fact, I would argue that this is the central contradiction and disappointment of The Glory.
His daughter is a child. But Ha Do Young is a construction boss*. Let that sink in. A. Construction. Boss. You ever heard of one of those who *hasn't* indirectly committed industrial manslaughter? Who hasn't used the poor, working class as fodder for profits? You think how he achieved immense wealth is *innocent*?
Construction bosses like Ha Do Young are far more scary a villain than a bunch of rich teens. He does not need to hold a heated rod himself in order to inflict lifelong scars. But that's ok I guess! The FL decides to take revenge *personally*, even if the motivation of her torturers wasn't personal at all.
And honestly, that approach from the writers makes sense. The Glory is escapism (torture porn aside). In the world of The Glory, injustice *can* be righted. Of course, this is only achievable when the violence is boiled down to the individual level rather than as a result of social structures. To suspend that disbelief, Ha Do Young remains unblemished and unscathed.
All this to say: my itch was not scratched! Either you provide a) individual motivations for the rich kids to have bullied the FL or b) pure class warfare. It's that easy :P
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*The construction industry is one of the worst for workplace deaths. It is the employer's responsibility to ensure a safe working environment for workers. Just last week, half a dozen Korean construction workers died in a fire likely originating from materials on site: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/14/at-least-6-killed-in-fire-at-south-korean-hotel-construction-site
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