Reviews

Watchable but disappointing

I found out about this movie after people pointed out that the actress from Atypical Family K-drama (the FL’s ‘sister’) was in a lesbian movie, and of course I was intrigued.

Korea doesn’t produce many GLs or lesbian centered movies (atleast not now), so I always look forward to watching a new one, but this movie is just too vague. Half of the time I had to fill in the gaps myself on what was happening, and the abrupt cuts they would have between some scenes (e.g the scene where she was talking to that guy in the junkyard about her gf and him asking her why she was being sensitive over him wanting to meet her gf and then her moving away and then the scene just cuts) There’s more examples, I’m sure you would notice them too. However the chemistry between the actresses was also not that good, I was expecting a lot more but throughout the movie it felt like Jisoo wasn’t reciprocating any of the feelings back and she was just with her for fun. I wanted to enjoy this movie, seeing two people in love but it turned bleak so fast and it remained that way throughout the movie.

But I guess the stereotype of lesbians wanting to move in with each other immediately after getting together is true 🤣

Overall, the movie isn’t that bad, it talks about homophobia though very briefly and they never really get into it too much. It felt like everytime they touched a new topic in the movie, it wouldn’t be brought up again at all.

I wasn’t satisfied with the ending either, like I said, too vague. But the beginning was cute I guess.

Read More

Pretty bad honestly

With the director and everything I thought this was going to be pretty good, but I full on got up and quit watching and went to shower. My partner finished the ending and told me about it, and Im glad I didn't sit through to finish it. Lots of harm and hate towards women. I get its the whole story, but after the first incident it is entirely on the ML's choices that the rest of the people get hurt because of his unwise and vengeful decisions. I dont need to watch a film being gorey / graphic towards women.

The beginning is decent, good set up, good motives, and I can't say it wasn't well filmed because it certainly was. Acting is well done, whoever wrote this is the problem. Story is bad. ML becomes just as bad as the villains and is leading on the harm towards other people. I told myself after another women got harmed that if he let the pedo kliller go ONE more time for his sh*tty selfish anger and someone died I'd be done with it. And that's exactly what happened. Would not recommend. Its not "good revenge" if you let other people die, get traumatized and then ask that person to then help the dude who literally just SA'd you. Seriously?

Being a decent film doesnt negate this terrible plo

Read More

hear me out...

I loveee everything about it except... maybe... the ending. I mean, I'm kind of torn about it because I'm aware that dysfunctional (?) relationships are really a thing when it comes to japanese media (i also read manga sooo iykyk) but in this case i kind of didnt want them to follow that kind of storyline and i was lowkey expecting them not to because izumiya and nao had potential. like, it felt like they could make it work as a couple even though it was quite obvious that nao liked sakaki. it wasnt just the age gap that kind of bothered me with sakaki and nao but its the fact that their parents had a double affair so them being together (i mean, that's how it looked like with the movie ending) feels wrong. anyways, i liked the cast hirose suzu will always deliver, i love her and also the one who portrayed nao and izumiya (the little sister) they also did a good job. the lighthearted/comedic parts were also good. the sceneries were also so gorgeous. so all in all, i really enjoyed watching this movie and i recommend it <3 AND THEY HAVE A CAT!!! the cat was so cuteee. i almost cried when i thought they wouldn't adopt it.

Read More

A story of longing and yearning from the Days of Disapproval !

Though this movie was released in 2020, it's reminiscent of a classic 1900s film, portraying the struggles of a queer relationship amidst societal repression and how homosexuality was not to be accepted by family and the society in the social unrest period.

The story follows the intricate relationship between Birdy and Jia Han.
 It was complex and intriguing at the same time. The depth and vulnerability of both the characters were heartwrenching and was portrayed beautifully.

The story is set up in an 'All boy's school' with Jia-Han and Birdy meeting and bonding immediately. There are subtle hints of their intimacy at the start. Even with the obvious hints, I liked how the romance was not rushed delivering a believable chemistry.

Ji-Han's struggle in trying to come out in a homophobic society contrasts with Birdy's attempt to suppress his feelings and be accepted into societal norms. (The famous star-crossed romance).
The acting was phenomenal by both the leads. The craving, the yearning, the constant push and pull for each other. Holding each other and crying during the shower and the telephone conversation scene were the peak for me.
The editing of this drama is also noteworthy. I like how the narration is done by Jia Han and how the scene seamlessly goes into flashbacks so effortlessly to tell us the story.

The story felt more of Ji Han's point of view and I would have liked more context of Birdy's thoughts. I felt his character was bit under developed. His decisions here and there defied reasoning.

However,  the ending was too abrupt for me. Abrupt won't be the correct word- Unsettling maybe. It serves as a realistic, sad and overpowered portrayal of lingering feelings and effects of societal repression. You can feel the tension, suffocation and smell the regret.

It could be considered a sort of a happy ending in the grand scheme of things.  It does show and give a glimmer of hope for the future generations.

This movie is like a harsh reminder of all the struggles faced by queer community and I do recommend this despite its minor flaws

Read More

deeply touching movie

"Our Season" deeply moved me. From the start, you're drawn into the heartfelt story of Bok-ja, a mother who has passed away and is granted a short, miraculous chance to visit her daughter, Jin-joo.
Their silent, one-sided interactions are both heartbreaking and beautiful, and showed their bond that transcends even death.

The film's use of food as a central theme is my favorite thing. Seeing Jin-joo try to reconnect with her mother's memory through cooking was incredibly moving. I cried buckets during these scenes, the food looked delicious, and I could almost smell each dish they showed.

This movie was a also a healing experience for me and it gave me similar feelings as “Little forest”. I might he be biased because those are my favorite kind of movies hehe.
It makes you reflect on your relationships with loved ones and reminds you to cherish every moment. If you're looking for a movie that will touch your heart and stay with you long after the end, it’s a must watch.
9,5/10. ♥️🙏

Read More

Don't romanticise the abuse, if it comes back to you, will you be able to handle that?

Before watching this movie you should be aware of the tags, which are enough to trigger your senses. And here I am sitting completely shocked. I don't know how should I explain my feelings, whom should I sympathize with, where did it start to go wrong. Only Japan can produce something raw like this to make you believe the unbelievable.

If you want to know how Stockholm Syndrome look like, then this is the perfect example of one. The traumatic events that teenage boy, Moto has to go through just "to keep himself safe" is beyond horrible and disgusting. He tolerated his trauma and came to fond of it. Moto wanted to trust and believe Sala but she's a horrible adult to begin with. She exploited the innocent and when she acts indifference of the situation made my blood boil with anger and frustration. I had to check the age of boy current and at that time just to ensure my heart he wasn't a minor. I wanted to question her "how do you like it when the things you did to others, is done to you?" Then I found myself guilty for feeling that way. Idk whom should I apologise to.

But why would you watch it -
• chilling realistic acting
• to come out of your comfort zone and understand there's someone out there doing and going through these same things. Just to be aware of these wicked humans.
• there's always that grey area of our mind which needs to fed with ugly reality once in a while to realise how grateful we should be for our safe place.

Why you shouldn't -
• if you are sensitive of "these" triggers. Just check out tags, you'll know why.
• if you can't differentiate reel and real life (I know I'm contradicting my own point but you need to realise not all situations are same, not every person behaves the same way. Things can be more or less brutal in real life and this is just a dramatisation of a fictional characters)

My rating: 7/10, I can't explain it enough how realistic their acting was to make me punch them in the face at the moment.

Read More

Essential Masterpiece

In 1960, at the time of the release of 'Cruel Story of Youth', Japan was in the midst of a series of protests against the renewal of the Japan-America treaty (Anpo) and the related growing student movement; Oshima, like many of his contemporary colleagues, not even 30 years old at the time, was a keen observer of the ongoing changes, perceived this new feeling of revolt that would even lead to a split in the Japanese Communist Party towards even more radical ideas, and succeeded in making two other features that were strongly integrated in that historical moment.

The picture is produced by the major Shochiku, a legendary company founded in the 1920s, which enforces the use of CinemaScope and colour, not particularly favoured by the new generation of filmmakers; The film studio is perhaps convinced that it can exploit the late 1950s phenomenon of the so-called "Taiyozoku Eiga" (Sun Tribes), movies based on Ishihara Shintaro's novels about the angry and dissolute youth of that period, but "Cruel Love Story" ends up by upsetting the cards, literally overturning the Japanese film table and pushing the pedal even deeper, highlighting the general traits of what will be defined in a simplistic way, Nūberu Bāgu, in response to the French ‘Nouvelle Vague’ film scene revolution , definition is certainly not appreciated by Oshima since, like other filmmakers of the time such as, for instance, Masahiro Shinoda or Yoshishige Yoshida, he feels more artistic (and political) affinities with the Polish cinema of Andrzej Wajda, in especially his 'Popiól i diament' (Ashes and Diamonds).

The plot is well known: Shinjo Makoto, a young under-age female student, and Fujii Kiyoshi, an idle aspiring gangster who met in the middle of a tragic situation, fall in love and decide to set up a racket where she picks up unsuspecting drivers who offer to accompany her (with obvious ulterior intentions) while he, on a motorbike, breaks into the scene at the right moment, threatening them with prosecution and beating them up, with the aim of extorting money from them... Of course, the consequences will have a price to pay...

The picture was a huge success with audiences and was critically read as the Oriental response to “À bout de souffle”, the first masterpiece by French director Jean-Luc Godard, starring Jean Paul Belmondo and the stunning (and very unfortunate) Jean Seberg; Behind the undoubtedly obvious analogies, starting with the style, the cinematic approach, the use of the hand-held camera (however with stylistic variations and more 'natural' movements than Godard or even the Brazilian master Glauber Rocha, who was also shortly to become the forerunner of the 'Cinema Novo' movement) and the display of close-ups, there is however a whole series of aspects that make Oshima's movie memorable:

"Cruel Story Of Youth" is characterised by a whole series of stylistic innovations and breaking elements, contravening the rules established by the masters, 'fathers' of Japanese cinematography such as Ozu, Mizoguchi etc. Pervaded by an existential pessimism that spares no one, Oshima portrays a generation, that of the twenty-somethings, of outcasts, completely lost in an absolute nihilism, in rebellion against any moral, social or political convention, devoid of dreams or ideals and with a self- destructive, absolute anarchic inclination to crime. Practically 'rebels without a cause', and without the extraordinarily melodramatic romance of Nicolas Ray's masterpiece with James Dean and Natalie Wood.

A revamping of conceptions capable of shifting the focus from the 'classic' representation of the family - think of Ozu and its role within the modernist changes in Japanese society, or Naruse for his work on ordinary people and the condition of women in the Land of the Rising Sun - towards a representation of identity and individualistic logics, linked to the new post-war and unconventional generations.

"Adults Don't Understand Me" ('Otona Wa Wakatte Kurenai') is the translation of the Japanese title of Truffaut's "Les Quatre Cents Coups" and behind this simplification one can summarise the confrontation-generational clash with the movie's adults, well represented by Makoto's older sister and her ex-lover, the doctor Akimoto, in a dramatically representative moment, in which all the disillusionment of the two mature ex-lovers emerges, aware of a generational failure that has wiped out all their youthful dreams (it almost brings to mind Ozu's movie of 1932), which is counterbalanced by Kiyoshi's spiteful observation that he has no dreams whatsoever and therefore does not risk ending up like them...

But there is also the deep frustration of Makoto's older sister Yuki, who admits to envying their freedom, even sexual freedom (explicit, in the truly adult dialogues that stand out from the start), along with the authorial inability of their father, practically reduced to a caricature incapable of any adult decision and, figuratively speaking, placed on the fringes of the conversations (and the frames).

Alone and aware that they are condemned to a sad, sordid existence, estranged from the strict rules of Japanese society, the two young lovers wander aimlessly, in the beautiful Michelangelo Antonioni-style pre-finale, 'lost' in their city, on their way to their inevitable fate....

It is easy to imagine the cultural shock the picture may have caused in 1960 in a country deeply lacerated by student revolts, by the wounds of World War II, in its attempt to raise its head again, opening up to the world in an attempt to show its best side;

Oshima, an exceptionally sharp master, manages to remove that gloss of respectability, almost of whitewashed sepulchres, taking what, in the hands of another filmmaker, could have been a noir or a conventional yakuza movie and providing the representation of a cynical world, without pity and hope that, in countless thematic variations, will pave the way for a truly rich cinematic decade for Japan. As far as I am concerned, it is one of the first Japanese cinema auteur movies that I have been able to appreciate since my youth, it was often televised at night, paired with Seijun Suzuki's 'Gate of Flesh' (another seminal director for me); the DVD version (on which I based the review) displays superior attention to subtitles, making more explicit the depth and rawness of the dialogues that were decidedly adult for the time.

Essential masterpiece

Read More

JAPAN RESPECTS THE QUALITY OF ITS PRODUCTIONS...

I didn't know the story and, consequently, not even the manga on which this film was based, but we have to praise that the screenwriters knew, in a simple and intelligent way, how to show us who the characters are and their characteristic profiles. In the post-credits scenes, they showed us the new characters that will come in future sequels.
One thing I miss in the vast majority of Chinese and Korean productions is the quality of CGI, costumes, and makeup that we find in almost all Japanese productions. I didn't feel embarrassed by any scene or dialogue, on the contrary, the quality of everything was great. I didn't know the "Golden Kamuy" universe, but I feel satisfied with what was presented here and I look forward to the continuation.

Read More

"Better to be broken jade than cheap tile intact"

This forty-one minute film fragment managed to fit in lots of Greedy Neighbors. This was one of director Ren Peng Nian’s early films which also starred his wife, Wu Li Zhu. Originally, the film was around 100 hundred minutes, but enough frames survived to get the gist of the story.

Hua Ren inherited his considerable wealth which includes prosperous farmlands. His wife, Guo Fen, is the daughter of a famous fighter, which will come into play later in the movie. She and his sister Si Wen try to keep things running smoothly as Hua tends to spend money frivolously. The local warlord, Wild Dog, decides it’s time to bully his neighbor into giving him his farmlands. Another scoundrel, Smiling Tiger, also has his sights set on fleecing the wealthy fool. Smiling Tiger convinces Hua Ren to take his sister, Zhi Hua, as his second wife. Zhi Hua quickly mesmerizes Hua Ren and drives a wedge between him and his sensible first wife and sister. Having fallen into the clutches of Wild Dog and Smiling Tiger, the clueless Hua Ren is in for some challenging times.

Hua Ren was not a sympathetic character. I was far more invested in Guo Fen and Si Wen, who coincidentally, were excellent martial artists and protected their own. Perhaps in the longer version of this film they had more time allotted, they certainly deserved it. I’m not sure if Zhi Hua and Smiling Tiger were actually related or if she was a plant because they had a very, uh, tactile relationship.

Once Hua Ren was about to lose everything, his sister and male servant helped to turn things around and galvanize him into action. “Today’s world is run by might…Better to be a broken jade than cheap tile intact.” The events that followed in the last part of the film were confusing as Wild Dog had to be confronted twice with no explanation. Given the mood of the film, it did seem to have a proper ending which is always a concern with film fragments.

If you have an interest in silent films from this era, Greedy Neighbors did give a little insight into the political happenings of the time and the vulnerability of the people. Ren Peng Nian and Wu Li Zhu would go on to make numerous martial arts and wuxia films together, with Wu often cast as a heroine. I’d be interested in seeing some of those. This film was a struggle watching the pampered and easily manipulated Hua Ren letting the important people in his life suffer while he partied. He was lucky enough to have two strong women who had his back or at least tried to. More than he probably deserved.

14 June 2024

Read More