Reviews

Star-Studded but kinda disappointing

I honestly wonder why this film did not receive many awards, especially since it is star-studded. Because of its cast, I had high expectations going into it. But in the end, the plot turned out to be a bit disappointing.

That said, the overall film still delivers a strong and important message, tackling one of the most serious crimes not just in the Philippines but worldwide—rape. The acting from the cast was commendable, but something felt lacking. Since the main setting was confined to just one location, the pacing came across as rushed.

It somehow gave me a similar vibe to A Very Good Girl. Uninvited had the potential to be much more impactful, but it didn’t fully maximize its strengths despite its strong cast and relevant theme.

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A sea of emotions and nostalgia

This is a sweet movie of friendships, hardship, and I guess a bunch of ships in a sea of emotions.

Life is not always easy, while the story starts out more or less fluffy and youth, puppy love ish... It does take a dive in the depths of the ocean.

Our leads do a phenomenal job conveying each and every emotion, they broke my heart several time and offered a back story that I guess had to be told. The contrast between the youthful, innocent cheer and the darkness is done really well. It is constantly there lurking behind without robbing the youthfulness of the story.

A great combination, well executed and with gorgeous cinematography and just enough hints of the past to make this old lady smile. .

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A great "turn your brain off" action movie.

I know we shouldn't like Mahiro and Chisato, but across the trilogy I somehow find myself rooting for them to win. Got me wondering if there's something wrong with me. The duo are funny, quirky, and oddly believable as fictional characters. And their love for one another- despite the fact that they don't always get along- is clear as day.
Mahiro and Chisato even have character arcs, which- in a movie like this- is a shocking and pleasant surprise.
I have nothing bad to say about any of the Baby Assassin movies. It is a very unique premise on the assassin genre. I can't give it a higher rating because... well...Mahiro and Chisato are assassins.

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Historical Film and Women Supporting Women

Historical Film where Women Support Women

Since the beginning of time men have started wars. There have also been spies, many were women. They made the best spies because females have been underestimated by men for years.

This movie does a good job portraying this and how women support eachother. I am glad I watched this one for the amazing cast but it will be a one time watch her for me.


Please look up trigger warnings as this one has a plethora of them.
Mostly Violence and death.
There are more so please look them up. if topics of war make you uncomfortable maybe pass on this one.

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Straightener

I love it!
Cute. Simple. Mini high school 90s movie.
Watching this movie brings me back of me and my bestfriend going to Korea for a month and a half.
We went to Busan and seeing the Gwangalli Beach made me emotional.
Its so beautiful.
I find this movie cute and simple.
--
Spoilers-
Only issue(s) are)... what was the purpose of the flashbacks of his water scene..?¿
What was the issue with the mom? His family?
Going back...? Those are questionable.
And the guy she liked. Nagustuhan din ba nya???
But overall. Its good.
I like thaT Gongyo was a cameo sa Huli LMAO
253pm
9425

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Mission: Possible – Silly? Just on the surface

It’s always satisfying to finish a movie that genuinely makes you laugh! Mission: Possible takes us on a journey full of misunderstandings and an unlikely duo who somehow manage to turn the impossible into possible — all thanks to their clumsy methods.
Yoo Da-Hui (played by Lee Sun-Bin) is a Chinese agent sent on a mission as a scapegoat. Due to a mix-up, she ends up teaming up with private detective Woo Su-Han (played by Kim Young-Kwang), an actor who’s mastered the art of playing goofy characters — though in the end, the only thing silly about him is his face.
This film strikes the perfect balance between action and comedy, with humor that flows naturally. There’s no romance in the storyline, and honestly, I didn’t miss it at all — watching them constantly annoy each other was more than enough entertainment!
Definitely a movie I’ll be rewatching!

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Shin Eun Soo Steals the Show

Love Untangled is one of several recent dramas set in the ’90s, a backdrop that some viewers will find nostalgic while others will be discovering for the first time. The film captures the era well, from school life to fashion trends, immersing the audience in its time period.

The performances are solid overall, though the group of friends feels underdeveloped; their personalities could have been explored more deeply. Instead, the movie is largely carried by Shin Eun Soo, who delivers a bold and touching performance that provides the story’s emotional core. Gong Myung also does what he can with Han Yun Seok, a character defined by his quiet, one-sided love, though the role gives him limited space to stand out.

As a youth romance, the film delivers what you’d expect: playful banter, tender moments, and the bittersweet process of learning how to navigate feelings for someone. However, several storylines feel underused, such as the rivalry with Park Se Ri’s sister, Yun Seok’s strained relationship with his father, and the love triangle, which never develops to its full dramatic potential despite its importance to the plot.

Ultimately, Love Untangled may be somewhat predictable, but it still offers a wholesome and enjoyable experience, particularly for fans of the genre.

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Two's couple, three's a crowd…Four is a cross

* Sonoko, the bored wife of the lawyer Kakiuchi, attends a private art school and during her lessons, while portraying the Bodhisattva divinity Kannon, she meets the young Mitsuko, being fascinated by her... Soon an unstoppable passion breaks out between the two women, which sees the more mature Sonoko obsessed by the manipulative Mitsuko and which will see the two women find themselves entangled in a torrid sexual labyrinth that will end up involving even the ambiguous Watanuki, Mitsuko's promised husband, and Sonoko's own husband…

Among other things, 1964 was the year that saw the remarkable encounter between the outstanding narrative style of the master Junichiro Tanizaki and the peculiar and unconventional cinematic vision of the great Yasuzo Masumura, a director capable of translating one of the Tokyo writer's masterpieces, the famous “Manji”, into images, rendered correctly in Italian as “La Croce Buddista” (The Buddhist Cross) and also released here as a movie with the adapted (but not taken out of context) title “La Casa degli Amori Particolari” (something like “The House of Unusual Loves”) and later also reworked by female director Liliana Cavani in a version transposed to World War II and titled “Interno Berlinese”...

Masumura inherited the project from Kon Ichikawa, who was in turn filming his work on the Tokyo Olympics. He enlisted the help of Kaneto Shindo for the screenplay and, more than faithfully respecting Tanizaki's novel (set in the late 1920s), he dried and compressed the pages of the book, dropping everything into a contemporary setting (recognisable by the clothes of the protagonists) with an almost theatrical feel, or a kammerspiel if you prefer…

An incredibly oppressive and claustrophobic setting (there are practically no outdoor sequences) with a skilful use of the flashback structure (just like in the novel), supported also by a beautiful chromatic rendering that emphasises the colours, but, above all, relying on his directorial dogmas, often criticised by artists such as Oshima, who had devoted more than one critical essay on Masumura's style to the method of the master of Kofu.

Masumura had formed in Italy, at the "Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia", a Roma" (CSC) in the two-year period from 1952 to 1954, and this experience had allowed him to associate with other colleagues of the calibre of Federico Fellini, Roberto Rossellini and Michelangelo Antonioni, to name but a few; Returned to his homeland, he immediately distinguished himself by his unconventional approach and a style that went against the trends of classical filmmakers, but also of his younger colleagues (such as Oshima himself) with an anti-naturalistic style that made no concessions to spectacle and the desires of the audience

"Manji', in the hands of another director, could have lent itself to an easy reading as a canonical melodrama with a tragic background, but Masumura's extremely direct -and concise- treatment combines formal radicalism (non-conformist vision) and adequate psychological tension, as well as emphasising the peculiarities of his directorial style...

Despite the sensitive subject matter, which would lend itself to even more daring representations, the direction avoids any possible voyeuristic complacency (the few nudities are extremely chaste, it must be specified...), focusing mainly on the characterisation of the protagonists, particularly Sonoko (Kishida Kyoko, perfect), the more mature of the two women, who, inexorably overwhelmed by the attraction and desire for Mitsuko (a beautiful and very excellent Wakao Ayako, a true muse of the director) progressively falls into a spiral of madness, without shame or any concern for -relative- consequences, including social ones.

Sonoko, a “bourgeois” woman with a rather conventional life, dissatisfied with the greyness of a loveless marriage, ends up suffering -and accepting- the overwhelming sensuality of the younger and more elusive Mitsuko who, with her ambiguities, duplicity and progressive lies, perfectly embodies that character figure who is characteristically anaffective, unscrupulous and cynically anti-naturalistic at the basis of Masumura's cinematography.

In this somewhat hyper-realist short circuit, Mitsuko ends up almost assuming the role of a sacerdotess, or goddess no less, thanks in part to her total identification with the portrait of the goddess Kannon, to whom she had lent herself more or less indirectly as a model, and who will find her reason for being in the concluding self-destructive spiral...

The two male figures, Sonoko's husband (Funakoshi Eiji) and Mitsuko's ex-lover (Kawazu Yusuke), emblematically miserable and devoid of any qualities, will progressively end up “sucked into the self-destructive vortex of a passion that, beyond its erotic dimension, will reveal itself above all as a struggle for the possession and annihilation of the other”.

Masumura's cinema is extreme, disorienting and in some ways disturbing (but he would go even further in subsequent years), capable of bending the rules of melodrama to his sharp vision that plumbs the depths and highlights false bourgeois conventions, even repressive ones on the subject of sexuality, highlighting a radical critique of the hypocrisies of Japanese society.

It is not known whether Tanizaki was able to see (and appreciate or not) this reduction of his beautiful novel (the writer died the following year, in 1965), but it must be said, beyond the personal tastes of each spectator, that Masumura offers a decidedly respectful and even faithful representation of the most important passages, allowing us for once not to turn up our noses and find a pleasant exception to the age-old dilemma of the quality of films based on novels, more or less representable in cinematographic format...

8 ½

* I would like to indirectly thank the author Beniamino Biondi for his courageous work ‘ Giganti e Giocattoli - Il Cinema di Yasuzo Masumura’, for the many news and interesting insights; And, as always, for the beautiful catalogue ‘Racconti Crudeli di Gioventù’ (Nuovo Cinema Giapponese degli anni 60), Marco Muller and Dario Tomasi; Their essay is an inexhaustible and irreplaceable source when writing reviews…

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