Reviews

the leads repulsed by the thought of having one kiss

when i watched the serie first, i can tell that both dont want to kiss but i was like "whatever" the story was so good then and fun so i was able to ignore it but here the movie is kinda slow, not many things going on and the fake kisses?? i mean i will not mind if there is no kiss at all instead of making fake kiss scenes while its so obvious that they are not kissing and it make me wonder ,why those people act as a couple in bls if it make them feel so uncomfortable? look its not a bed scene or anything but one kiss repulse them and i just find it ridiculious? stick to straight series if you cant deal with acting in a bl because i watch and as a viewer i dont get the feels that "those two are in love" their scenes do look awkward asf.
only 2 positive things i want to mention , i like Kurosawa's character , so understanding so patient,so supportive and so in love, the other thing is Yutaro i love his blond hairstyle look so good on him and he is so pretty, i wish to see him in another bl but as a main character instead

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"죽기 전에 또 봐."

🔸️I've been hearing a lot of complaints that a little brat like Sang Woo is not a realistic portrayal of a naughty kid. Well. I grew up with my grandmother who is currently 83 years old. I was spending the holidays at her house with no hot water and a toilet outdoors. I can't compare that to the rural Korea of 2000s, but as I watched the movie I felt so strangely familiar with its world.

🔸️Moving from the small apartments with almost sterile cleanliness that my mom maintained to the house with mosquitoes, bugs and mice running around always required an adaptation period. Old people can't put as much effort into cleaning, and their eyesight and memory are bad. I would often ask grandma to cook something, and when she put the salt in twice or even trice I would push the dishes aside and say they are disgusting. When grandma didn't understand what I said I would call her deaf and not repeat my words on purpose. I would sometimes refuse to thread a needle for her. She didn't kick me out of her house, and she wasn't saint nor very patient. She just new I was a silly kid. After a couple of days of being squeamish I started washing the dishes and dusting by myself, and even eat the soup with a drown midge in it. In the end of the summer I didn't want to come back home.

🔸️집으로... is everything but manipulative. The kid in the story isn't coming over the grandmother's house voluntarily like me. He has problems in his family, he feels abandoned for a weird person he doesn't really know. If you look into your childhood you could probably find the moments you acted like Sang Woo even if you didn't admit it to yourself. There are many moments when the boy does good things, he's not plain evil. It's insincere to call him a piece of sht because most of us were the same and have forgotten that.

As I looked at Kim Eul Boon I couldn't stop thinking how much has she lived through. She saw the Japanese occupation and all the Six Republics of Korea. And how many more old people lived off their gardens in the same conditions as the main character in 2000s?

🔸️The movie might not be the most subtle or "intellectual", but it has a strong core. I see now, Minari was definitely inspired by The Way Home. There is nothing extraordinary in its cinematography, or acting, or the screenplay, but all of them are very organic. That's what makes people love the movie.

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One calm movie

This is heart warming movie, tell a story about a girl that sick of a life in city & she decided to back to her small hometown & live there for a period of time, healing herself & re-build the relationship with her neighbor & friends.

If you also kinda sick with the life in the city, with all the hardship in the big city & all the stuff the big city can offer you. You can take a peek of what kind of life the little village can offer you.

This movie have very calm environment that can bring peace to your soul. No conflict or anything in the movie, just like Booklover_95 wrote in her/his review: "No angst, no forced laughter, no tears but just sit through it and feel refreshed just watching it." Really one movie to heal your head from all the problem you have in your real life & enjoy the ride for this movie

The one point about this movie for me that I don't too like. The time is so damn slow.... Even after watch it with double speed still so damn slow for me.... But if you want to watch something refreshing & for playing in the background this movie can be your choice. But in the end to watch this kind of movie sometimes still quite good & refreshing for our soul....

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Cliched budget John Wick remake

This movie is essentially a Korean John wick Remake replaced with a female protagonist. Many salient plot points were literally copy and pasted from John Wick: assassins having their own secret gatherings with their own rules, assassins' meeting place is similar to the continental hotel in John Wick, other assassins' turning on Bok Soon/John Wick due to a bounty on their head etc. Makes you wonder if they were trying to time it together with John Wick 4's release date. Aside from the similarities with the John Wick series, the rest of the film's plot was just the same old washed up cliches. Assassin/contract killer suddenly having a guilty conscience for some reason throwing everything in jeopardy blah blah blah. I literally rolled my eyes at that point. Bok Soon has been in this trade for at least 2 decades and yet she gets a crisis of faith trying to kill some politician's son? Why? Oh, it's because she is a MOTHER! But wait a minute, she has been a mother for 15 years and NEVER felt this way until now? This makes no sense AT ALL. You want me to believe that out of all the people she has killed in her career she has never killed someone as "innocent" as this random politician's son? Did she not consider that the other people she has killed before were also someone's child/parent as well?

Other fun tropes in this film also include pairing up the experienced veteran (Bok Soon) with the scrappy intern, Bok Soon's mentor/boss letting her kill him and all the single mother with rebellious teenage children scenarios that you can think of. Speaking of this whole "single mother who is also an assassin" plot point, I really want to say that Bok Soon's daughter is the most poorly written character in the whole show. She is a typical teenage girl going through puberty and coming to grips about being a lesbian but some of her actions are so illogical it just made me annoyed. She oscillated so often between being cold and aloof towards her mother to conveniently blowing up her mother's phone during her "shows" it made me think she was bipolar instead. Also, the whole coming out scene was so strangely written I'm not sure if the LGBT representation should even be appreciated by the community. At least the saving grace was that the acting was decent... though the cinematography and editing were soo choppy it was obvious stunt doubles were used. Oh, and the ending was extremely abrupt and pointless. There was a random mid credit scene about Bok Soon's daughter "confronting" her ex girlfriend and threatening to kill her, to which the ex simply smiled creepily in response while teeny bopper music played in the back. Then the film cut to the rest of the credits. WTF was that about??

With all my various complaints out of the way, I'd say that this is still a fairly entertaining film that you should watch if you're a fan of the thriller/assassin genre. The acting is decent as well, so if you're willing to look past the weak ass storyline, it should still make for an enjoyable watch. I would however, strongly recommend the John Wick series if you have not watched that before instead.

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Great Movie, if you like John Wick

I mean it was really really good, it's like a korean take of John Wick, but they had the ranking system of One Punch Man or maybe even My Hero Academia, but mostly close to One Punch Man. And the mc was a women, so that was kinda breath of fresh Air. Though it's kinda ironic that this came out around the same time as John Wick 4

Storytelling was good, i think in the beginning it's kindly slow because they need time to build it up, I even almost fell off, but good thing i stucked with it as i'll slowly pick up as is goes on.

The sub plot of the daughter being a LGBT was fine, it wasn't distracting or ruining you're experience with the Movie, as they weren't really focusing on in that much.

The Cinematography was really confusing at times, cuz it was like a merge of old style asian and modern cinematography. I really the visualization when Boksoon is thinking on how to kill her opponents, that was really amazing, I think that really adds to her character.

Also, just a nitpick opinion, that sex scene of boksoon and heesung wasn't really necessary imo. I think the story would still be fine if it wasn't there, but i kinda get it why they had to add it, just to show how deep boksoon and heesung's relationship go, but again still unnnecessary.

Overall, I was really invested in the world, cuz it was interesting. It would've been great if this was a TV series, cuz the movie runtime didn't do it justice as it was to short for me, but it doesn't feel like it's rushed either. Still it would've been great if the world would be explored more because it's interesting, i think there's still lots to talk about. Hope they would make a sequel or spin off TV series of this.

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I shouldn't have watched it alone!

This movie was, for me, surprisingly good. The film quality isn't fabulous, it's an older movie, and you need to make sure that the room that you are watching it in is dark, because this film has a lot of dark scenes that are hard to see.

Story/script: SPOILERS! Overall, it was good, but a couple of glaring things stuck out to me. First, her guide dog had to be the worst guide dog ever. She walked her out into the middle of an intersection with cars coming! THEN, the dog left her when she got off the train. Granted, the dog did come back to try to protect Soo Ah, and then died?!?!?! I know it was necessary to the story about "I lose everyone I love" but come on! Thankfully I knew about this ahead of time, so I was somewhat prepared, but then to kill off the inspector?!?! Couldn't the writer just have him be wounded? I was hoping he'd show up at her graduation and was so disappointed. Another thing that irritated me, her burning herself while cooking, and spilling things all over the place. She'd been blind for three years; it seems she would have adapted better than this. I felt that the writers were trying to show us how "weak" she was because of her disability. It didn't ring true to me. That being said, the tension in this movie was real, lots of sudden camera shots that had me jumping in surprise.

Acting: I love all of the actors that were in this and felt they did a good job.

The ending scenes were sweet, showing that she had someone else in her life to care about her.

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Asura

Please release this again. I feel like this time around it would get a better reception from the audience. If not, please make it where we are able to stream it online. You would see the differences. I believe more viewers would watch it now. This film did get get a chance for audience to see. Make it where now it is available and in available in different languages. I have searched everywhere to try to watch this but unable to. All I was able to find is the trailer and nothing more……… what other options will be offer to watch this movie. I have searched and all I am able to see is only the trailer. I hope that this movie will be available to give it another chance

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Frustrating

The whole movie is just a hot mess of communication issues. If everyone was more honest with each other it wouldn't have been as bad, but then again the movie would be completely different from start to end if that was the case. I found the whole thing more frustrating than sad.

The acting was great and I liked most of the main characters in general. However the whole plot did not do them justice. I feel like a couple of the side characters could have been brought into the story differently -especially the photographer who was the one character that made me cringe with irritation every time she showed up.

I wouldn't waste your time on this one. The Korean one I felt was better, but I think if I re-watched it after seeing this one I may knock my rating down a star or two just because I realize the plot in general is not my cup of tea. I prefer honesty even if it hurts momentarily to just living through a lie.

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this is my comfort show

no words can describe how much i love this show, while i know its not perfect and there is plotholes i still love this serie soo much. first the chemistry of the leads is so goooooooood i need to see them in another bl serie please :( the chemistry and the kissing scenes are so good, i was looking for the movie after watching the serie because i missed it a lot
and the ost? perfection, i saved the song in my phone i love listening to that type of music
Cha Woo Min has a perfect smile like a sunshine, the actor is so pretty and cute and he reminds me of someone... jimin of bts maybe? i dont know whats about it, probably his eyes or his smile, as jimin also give a bright vibe as he also has a beautiful smile.
i will say definitively that this korean bl serie is my comfort serie and im glad i watched it, its underrated so im really glad that i find it out accidently, i highly recommend it, it feels like something that lift your mood and make you naturally smile

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Best movie , Too bad it’s not a drama, it can compete with American movies

I have watched this movie and all I can say is that it’s perfection from actors to everyone included to produce this masterpiece, I hate one thing about this it’s just that it was too short this good story deserves big platform, like tv show/drama because there are some great story that we didn’t get to see we would have liked but it’s played well to not notice great job to the producers and screen writers , am hoping there would be a prequel to this it can also be a great movie and also a sequel . in short apart from this movie being to small for this great story it’s an amazing work it can compete with Hollywood movies .

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I expected a Psycho Thriller

I mean, the main antagonist is indeed a serial killer, so why not? It was more like a political drama with some action thriller. The cast was well-chosen and I have no complaints about their acting. I am still not sure what role the CIA plays in the movie. Why are they involved?

Lee Jong Suk's characters have surprisingly few lines throughout the film. I heard he is really shy in real life, but villainous characters really suit him, to be honest. Looking forward to seeing him playing more challenging characters in the future.

I would recommend this film if you prefer something dark and twisted. Happy watching.

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Sweet

What a cute movie! I wasn't too sure at the beginning, because it seemed so outdated, the film quality was a little iffy.

I didn't care for the ML or the FL at the beginning. He was just a sad sack, and she was completely materialistic. I was wondering if I should continue, and I'm sure glad I did. The growth and development of both characters, both individually and as a couple was lovely to watch.

The concept was slightly like Il Mare, with the two mains being in 1999 and 2018, but here, they end up inhabiting the same apartment. I thought the special effects were well-done, and what they did to the apartment so they could inhabit the same space was really clever.

The ending was bittersweet, but based on the clips following the credits, I choose to believe in a happily ever after for them.

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The movie was good but not great.

The movie was good but not great. **SPOILER ALERT**

1. The actions scenes I love it & they look realistic. I love the coldness of the female lead but also her warm side of being a mother at the same time. Both Boksoon and her daughter demonstrate a common thing is they both afraid will the other side accept the secret. That's like the main wall between them.

2. The actors are great but the plot isn't. The ending is an open ending and abruptly.

3. The ending could have been better if the fight between Boksoon & Cha guy is longer. It's like before the fight, the movie shows the tension between the two so I thought the fight would be mind blowing but it's not. I really don't know whether Cha guy is really love Boksoon or not. It seems like he didn't fight at his best, maybe because he loves her but at the same time, why did he let Boksoon's daughter see the fight between them. It's like love and hatred at the same time. Their relationship is confusing that make me wanna find out more.

Therefore, in terms of actions 8.5/10 ; plot 7/10; actors 9/10. Overall is 8/10.

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"A faithful heart makes wishes come true"

I first watched this film when it was theatrically released in my country years ago. All I had to go on was a friend's recommendation and zero background in the wuxia genre. To say I walked into the nearly empty theater apprehensive would be an understatement. My fears were for naught. In a matter of minutes, I was completely mesmerized by the cinematography, music, and acting. Having watched my share of fantasy and super hero movies, I had no problem with the flying and light body technique as the characters danced across rooftops or fought high in a bamboo forest. The graceful movements and fighting techniques were like nothing I had ever seen. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was the gateway into a new world for me. Little did I know that it would set the bar for all films that followed.

Though this movie was a wuxia, the heart of the film were the two romances. Yu Shu Lien, the owner of a delivery escort service and Li Mu Bai, a warrior trained at Wudan had fought their feelings for years. Their love was unrequited as Lien had been engaged to Li Mu Bai's friend, but he was killed and the two would not act on their feelings. Now they are reunited as Mu Bai brings her his famous sword, The Green Destiny, and asks her to deliver it to their protector. His journey toward self-enlightenment has brought him to her and he wishes to leave the bloodshed behind them. The 400- year-old sword is too much temptation for Jen, a young woman engaged to be married but secretly trained by the devious Jade Fox. The incognito Jade Fox had poisoned Mu Bai's master years before for his refusal to teach her the secrets of Wudan. Lien is aware who stole the sword and works to return it without bringing any dishonor to the families involved. The middle of the film focuses on Jen and her previous love affair with Lo Xiao Hu/Dark Cloud, a charismatic desert bandit, and in the present when she takes the sword a second time to find her way as a wandering warrior. Mu Bai and Lien know she needs someone righteous to train her before she becomes a poisonous dragon. The treacherous Jade Fox has only vengeance on her mind for Jen and Mu Bai. By the end of the film the characters will collide in a deadly conclusion.

On a recent re-watch, I could see all of the classic wuxia elements from the over 200 martial arts movies I have watched since that long ago day in the theater. Ang Lee used those elements but blew them up into a grand epic, showcasing a wide variety of stunning scenery taking the genre where it had not been before. Characters traveled through the mountains, desert, verdant valleys, and lush bamboo forests. The inn and outdoor café sets ubiquitous in so many old kung fu films made their appearance in grand style this time. The busy city streets didn't feel like a small set, but substantial with plenty of extras to add an additional layer of realism. Ang Lee made full use of the sets and scenery to bring about an energetic and beautiful atmosphere for the story to be told in. Unlike so many martial arts movies prior to CTHD the characters in this film were more important than the fighting. He not only succeeded in making a gorgeous framework for the story but also in developing characters we could feel empathy with as they struggled with their deepest feelings. They had depth and emotional weight to them instead of the thinly drawn characters of old. By paying attention to the smallest details and insisting on a quality presentation, Ang Lee set the bar higher for those who would follow him.

Michelle Yeoh was a revelation to me, and I will always be thankful for this film introducing me to her. She had been in the business for over 15 years at this point honing her craft and risking life and limb at times to do so. Though her fighting technique was fearless, quick, and agile, it was her expressive face revealing longing, fierceness, and tenderness that quickly drew me in and made me a life-long fan. Her portrayal of the mature and wise Yu Shu Lien was perfect. Chow Yun Fat as the spiritual warrior Li Mu Bai, showed how he was torn between his love for Lien, his desire for enlightenment, and his need to avenge his teacher. His calm demeanor was in stark contrast to Jen's firebrand personality always teetering on being out of control. Zhang Zi Yi in only her second film held her own with the veteran actors. As Jen she conveyed naivete, passion, and anger fluidly. Chang Chen as the ardent Dark Cloud resonated the wildness of the desert and his fervent love for Jen. Again, there was the contrast of Jen and Lo's fiery passion in comparison to Mu Bai and Lien's controlled, repressed love. Rounding out the stellar cast was Cheng Pei Pei as Jade Fox. I have gone on to watch her earlier movies where she had been the young female warrior who faced insurmountable odds, paving the way for other actresses. I'm so pleased they used her in this movie as the vengeful villain and gave the kung fu veteran a chance to shine.

Lien and Jen both sought freedom in their own way and both were bound by duty. Jen loathed being forced to marry wishing only to be free and Lien greatly desired to be with Mu Bai, but was prevented by a rigid sense of honor. The two couples were the inverse of each other emotionally and would gradually become more like the other whether a crouching tiger, biding its time or a hidden dragon of emotions. Lo and Jen, embodied the recklessness of youth with no regard for tomorrow. Lien and Mu Bai sought to guide them to more thoughtful actions. For restrained Lien and Mu Bai, they had reached the point where they were finally able to break through their control to unleash their feelings and unspoken words. True love trumped spiritual enlightenment as what was important became revealed in one last breath.

The only quibble I have with this magnificent film is with the long flashback interlude showing Jen and Lo's love affair. It was similar to The Taming of the Shrew and feels dated in the telling.

Yuen Woo Ping masterfully matched the fight choreography to the mood of the film. The actors did much of the fighting, check out all the face time during the battles. Instead of CGI, the floating and leaping, even in the bamboo forest-truly a thing of beauty, was accomplished by wire work. The fights were more elegant than brutal and more visually captivating than realistic. Aside from the bamboo forest fight, the fight between Lien and Jen was spellbinding. The experienced Lien used a variety of weapons as she sought to subdue the thief of the Green Destiny in a memorable fight choreography.

After my recent re-watch I found that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has stood the test of time. Though I have searched for its equal or better through the years I have yet to find a martial arts film to top this one. Only Hero's stunning aesthetic came close. Compelling characters, wonderfully acted, enchanting cinematography, a haunting score, and balletic fight scenes have made this the measuring stick for all other films. It is rare for a film to touch me deeply emotionally and this one has for over two decades. I need to remember to thank my friend again for encouraging me to visit this world of wonder.

3/31/23

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This is actually nice

So I had read some bad reviews so I had low expectations… but this was actually cute and nice
Yes, sure, this is nothing extraordinary or epic. But this still makes one pass a good time : we have four good stories about love within the family.
It’s not something overly dramatic though : you still get good laughters, especially in the second story, with the father getting his head stuck in a bar, who desperately refuses to take off his mask and take the risk of being photographed (jeez, this had me dead 🤣🤣🤣, especially the way people who gather around him to try to get his head out).
Nevertheless, the stories are both touching and happy. It will help give you a breath of fresh air, exactly what you need when you don’t want anything serious for a moment.
The actors are great, even the youngest children : some may be disappointed that Dylan Wang is there for only a quarter of the story but honestly ? This is to be expected, the movie doesn’t lie about the fact that this is divided in four parts.

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