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It's Entertaining at Best.
I remember hearing about this movie a couple months ago but didn't really know much about it, other than it takes place in 1988 and there was some robbery or heist involved.For a 2+ hour long movie, it's surprising lacking in the character development area. There are far too many unknowns that we are left to guess or make assumptions about. For example, why was Park Dong Wook (main lead) so invested in getting to the USA - we're not really given an answer and it might having something to do with racing but we have to guess. There's a lot missing from this movie about his family that is left to us to try and piece together or just blatantly ignore.
For the main character to be quite obsessed with the USA and the USA rap scene (given his 'shrine' to it), I was surprised by the lack of actual late 80's American rap music. We get a couple of songs - I think only two - not sure if budget wasn't allowing for more, he has an album in his shrine but no music from that artist is used during the movie.
The car chase scenes were okay, let's be honest, there are a lot better car chase scenes out there in movie land and with having to age Seoul backwards, a lot of scenes felt either completely CGI and/or a lot of green/blue screen (not necessarily a bad thing but noticeable).
This probably would have been better as a limited 8 or 10 part series where they could have fleshed out the characters and have a better script, because yes - the script was definitely lacking.
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Asian Daredevil, Constantine, Ghost Rider in one
For me, this one throws of a mixture of vibes; like the ML w/ a father figure who died while he was young (Daredevil), the exorcism part (Constantine), and the burning of evil souls (Ghost Rider).Not much with story plot. It's straight cut. No unusual twists and turns, not even a bit of mystery. Actors were great. Fight scenes were ok but the effects were way better. I wish a bit of romance was added to the story because it's just too dry for me. Boring.
Would I rewatch it, maybe not anytime soon.
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THIS WILL MAKE YOU WORK YOUR BRAIN
From the very first scene, the cinematography is very beautiful. It's one of those movies where you'll be wondering "what did I just watch?". With top-notch acting, the cast is just perfect. Kim Nam Gil and Sol Kyung Gu as usual delivered a spectacular performance. I am a big fan of Kim Nam Gil and it's my first time seeing him as a villain and I have to say it he pulled it perfectly. In spite of your best efforts, you will never be able to predict the twist the director created. There's nothing better than watching a good thriller movie, and this just hits the spot.Watch it, it's worth it.
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What a difference a day makes...
This movie starts off a bit meeh, with some questionable slightly low humour, meeh quality, meeh characters... yep meeh indeed.But then comes the male lead, who is charming, fun, oddly relatable and that actually takes medicine for his illness and has bruises, symptoms, and though he does have some mood swings his decisions, worries, and reactions make a lot of sense. He also has a lovely sense of humour which is obviously his way of dealing with his illness.
The female lead was annoying at first but she grew on me, she is a bit impulsive, but also fun and her chemistry with the male lead is pretty decent.
There are perts that seem can seem to glorify suicide and death by renaming it being taken by aliens, and though I do think they take the subject a bit to lightly, they do shed light on som pretty big problems in society, and deal with loss, pain, loneliness, guilt of being a burden on your family and even squeeze in a crappy biological father.
Though the filming and well everything in the begging was bit meeh, the scenery and situations towards the end were really pretty, and though I did have to turn off my brain at times I did end up actually wanted to see more of these two.
P.s. I even shed a tear or two in this, so they managed to get to me though the meeh
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Won Bin is Fantastic - Excellent Fight Scenes
OMG this was so good. The best Korean action flick I've watched this year. Excellent story and phenomenal cast. This is the first thing I watched with Won Bin and I am super impressed now I have to watch everthing else.I was surprised to see Kim Sung Oh as that nasty, label loving, hot head. I have never seen him as the villain and he was really good. Kradum Thanayong Wongtrakul was excellent as the enforcer for the bad guys. He has an intensity in his face that was menacing yet somehow kind. He was a presence on screen. Kim Sae Ron was great as the young lead.
I give this a 10 overall and you can rewatch multiple times. My only gripe is that I wished the main villian's last scene had been more brutal.
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Hauntingly Beautiful Portrayal
As someone with several friends who are parents with Autistic kids, this short film was an absolutely hauntingly beautiful portrayal of what goes on in the mind of such a child. Their inner world is chaotic and seldom quiet unless they find some sort of calmness. Xiao Yu Liang, absolutely nailed An Ning; from the tremors, to hitting his head against the mirror in a bid of self harm and running into the water to escape both his inner and outer torment. The dance in the water and seeing the bubbles and whale in the clouds of his imagination and ultimately finding peace with someone just like him, honestly brought tears to my eyes. In just under 11 minutes, this short film managed to convey what many 3 plus hour ones couldn't. The poetry was recited solemnly and on pace with everything else that was going on at the time it was. I would recommend this to anyone whether or not they have any form of mental illness.Was this review helpful to you?
It's thrilling enough
I'm just an average moviegoer and I saw this with English subtitles. I can't understand Korean, and English subtitles always take away something from the movie. The experience is not as organic and it's hard to concentrate when your attention is divided between reading text and watching the scenes. With that said, let me share what I thought of the movie after watching it for the first time. The movie made me uncomfortable as it should be. The amount of tension and suspense on the screen until the midpoint is just sublime. As a disaster flick, it didn't really immerse me in the sense of danger and fear. I'm not fond of the route that the movie took to reach its ending. It didn't leave an impression. What I do love about this movie is the main cast. I admired their works for years. I wish the role of Im Si-wan was extended because I can't get enough of him.Was this review helpful to you?
Zero to Hero to Zero to Hero and so on...
This movie is based on a true story, and though we can not know how true every element is, the story does come off as believable, at times a bit sad other times uplifting and so on, focusing more on the process than the actual Zero and Hero partWhat I like about this story is that it is not afraid to confront the use of people with disabilities to inspire able bodied people... with a whole lot of if he can so should you and so on as there is quite a bit of criticism towards the add industry and how Paralympic athletes are treated. Along side the day to day life and importance becoming a hero has for the athlete with a disability for as as long as they can classify as heroes they will not be treated as badly as other people with disabilities. Do not get them wrong they still get treated as stereotypes, get controlled and risk being used by others to add on the stereotyping of people with disabilities. But at least they have a chance at making a living.
I also like how they show the people in this movie as humans, both the able bodied and disabled people portrayed here are not made to look neither overly pathetic or too heroic. The brother who was brought to the world just to take care of his brother does not just accept his destiny and shows that having a brother with a disability is not always fun and games either.
However there is something about the way it was edited that seemed at times to speak agains itself, on the one hand saying do not use people with disabilities as inspirational crap, but also please look at this montage with violins and mix in the real guy this is based on to try to get the viewers to feel a bunch of emotions which kind of put me off.
To sum it up a pretty good movie, not without its problems but defiantly a movie worth watching.
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Underrated Gem - very relatable
I would highly recommend this movie to anyone looking for a real story you can connect to and this Japanese movie was so amazing. I'm shocked that this doesn't have a big following and it's only a 7.4 on MDL. but I want to let you know this isn't fluff. it's dark. it's gritty. its about a straight man who is going back and forth wondering if he can be with a man so he keeps having relationships with women and the back and forth aspect of it to me was really realistic and I connected with both characters so much in this show.Was this review helpful to you?
Great Cast Mediocre Story Telling
Honestly I was very excited to watch this because I am huge fan of some of the actors in this movie and seeing Song Minho practically play a gooft version of himself was quite interesting but the story lacks any serious stakes for us to get attach to the characters. Yes we root for them but we are not quite sure why.It's fun and easy to watch but I had higher expectations from the premise and the cast. They acted but it feels like a waste of talents who can act raw emotion... You can watch it while doing something like knitting etc where you dont want to pay 100% attention to the movie.
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This movie really warmed my heart.
I clicked on this movie with absolutely no idea what this is about. I saw Jung Hae In and I was sold. That being said, I absolutely had no expectations for this. I even almost dropped this within the first five minutes because I thought I wasn't feeling any chemistry between the leads but oh man, I was in for a treat.This movie really warmed my heart. The mood and the aesthetic was very nostalgic and the music is just perfect. When "Fix You" by Coldplay started playing in the end, I was just bawling my eyes out because I was just so touched. The actors have the best chemistry I have ever witnessed and it's just made so much impact on me because I didn't expect it. The story does felt a little underwhelming especially the conflict towards the end. It was messy and unnecessary so the ending fell flat but the execution by the actors kinda made up for it for me.
One of my takeaways from this one is how timing is really everything. You could be trying so desperately for something but if it's not yet meant to be, it won't be. That being said, have faith that in time, everything will fall into place.
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I was going through the list of highest-grossing domestic films in Taiwan and was really surprised to see a nature documentary tied for 15th place. I'm a big nature documentary fan myself, though that side of me hasn't crossed with MDL before, so I was excited to track it down. As someone who has only seen Western-produced nature documentaries, watching this was an eye-opening experience! The first 25 minutes of this film have about five lines of narration. Mostly, the viewer is left alone to watch aerial shots of Taiwanese nature accompanied by beautiful instrumental and folk(?) music. I'm used to there being a story or constant facts in nature documentaries, so the lack of narration was a challenge for my attention span. I decided that the director must have expected the audience to meditate on the natural beauty being shown, and since this obviously wasn't a problem for Taiwanese moviegoers, I should work out my meditative viewing skills.
After those 25 minutes, the director decided that we've meditated on nature long enough, and the narration returns to tell us how human exploitation of the land, greed, and over-consumption are causing huge environmental problems for Taiwan. This was much easier for me to get engaged with, as I greatly care about environmentalism. Even in this part, I could still feel a difference from the Western documentaries I'm used to seeing. When those tackle environmentalism, they usually focus on the need for action: "If we don't do something in X amount of years, the impact will be irreversible." The focus of this was, "Look at the harm we have done, are doing, and will do to our country unless we make changes today." So the call for action was mixed with a call for personal accountability, which I think a lot of Western documentaries shy away from because they don't want the audience to feel they're being guilted. I liked this approach. I also thought it was funny, because I read a review on Letterboxd that said this film was only advertised in Taiwan as a nature documentary and NOT an environmentalist film, so people who went to see it in theaters expecting only to feel pride in Taiwan's beauty got hit with an environmentalist message that they might have otherwise avoided.
The film ends on a hopeful note, highlighting organic farmers who are trying to live in harmony with the land, before returning to its meditative origins and showing the beautiful scenery of Taiwan accompanied by a song calling for change. I thought the ending nicely balanced out the earlier, heavier middle. The viewer is left with the feeling, "Yes, we are personally responsible for hurting our country, but we can also be personally responsible for healing it."
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Unique & Brilliant
Okay so I went into this thinking it might be a bit more silly cuz of the image that showed up for it 😅 However it was actually a pretty serious story that just had a few silly moments.So the story is a cop that is a very "man of justice" type can see ghosts and wants to bring justice not just for the living but also the dead. He gets kicked from his main department and transferred to the secretive 9th Precinct. Here he's entered a world where ghosts are the clientele and your job is helping them move on. As the story goes we meet his coworkers, an interesting journalist, and learn of an ancient evil.
Now I know a lot of that seems like typical supernatural cop thriller stuff. I get it. However, I feel like they did it in a pretty unique way that really makes it shine.
The only drawback I have is the mid-credits ending. It leaves the floor open for a possible sequel but I'm unsure if there are talks of one being made. If not, then I feel like they shouldn't have had it in there.
The ending before the credits was perfect and brought the whole story full circle, in my opinion.
Either way I truly recommend people give this a chance because it is really beautiful.
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"You weren't given a hand grenade for nothing!"
In the waning days of WWII on a small jungle island in the Philippines, the Japanese soldiers found themselves outmanned, outgunned and perilously short on supplies. Fires on the Plain showed the ravages of hunger and despair not only on the human body but on the mind as well.This film was a fascinating look at war through the eyes of PFC Tamura. He found himself in a foreign land with no place to go. He had been to the army hospital to be treated for TB but returned to his company only to be rejected by his squad leader. The company had been decimated by enemy fire, lack of artillery and ammo, but more than anything starvation. The men took turns foraging for yams and bananas to feed themselves and Tamura was too weak to be anything but a drain on already strained resources. He was told if the hospital refused him again to stay there and when the time came to use his grenade on himself. Upon returning to the hospital Tamura found himself with a group of "squatters" kept outside the makeshift hospital presumably left to die. He made quick friendships with two of the squatters. Peace did not last long as the hospital was shelled and those who survived scattered.
As the days dragged on, Tamura found himself wandering alone, knowing he would die. Yet he still filled his canteen, still put one foot in front of the other and continued walking though he had no destination except survival. Along the way he met others and found that everyone was going toward one town with the hope of being evacuated. Poignant scenes of bodies left to lie in the muddy tracks of the road with Tamura refusing to look as he continued on were searingly painful. Even during these dark moments, lighter ones were interspersed as a boot exchange took place one after the other. Before the bedraggled and exhausted men lay a muddy marsh beneath a road on a hill, and a cleared field to cross, dangerous obstacles where the enemy could take advantage. After a disastrous attempt, Tamura found himself alone again wandering up a rocky hill with bodies strewn about like dead ants. Still resigned to dying, he trudged ever onward.
Eventually, he was reunited with two of the squatters and introduced to "monkey meat" and the madness hunger and despair can bring.
Tamura was an affable character rejected for being too weak, yet he never accepted much from anyone and shared with others. He survived when much of his company died and never gave up his humanity as he witnessed humanity in all its varied shades of black and gray around him.
Filmed only 14 years after the end of WWII Fires on the Plain was a critical look at war. These were not glorious, patriotic, die before capture soldiers. The men were starving, defeated and only wanted to go home. The enemy was not only the Americans and Filipino guerillas, but also hunger, desperation and even each other. Many struggled with the will to live and the will to not die. Some wanted to be captured so that they could eat corned beef and others were afraid the Americans or Filipinos would kill them. With American fears of booby-trapped bodies it was a real concern, yet they also showed American medics picking up the wounded after a skirmish. It was also a harsh admittance of stories of cannibalism of both Japanese soldiers and captured foreign soldiers. There was nothing easy about this film.
Funakoshi Eiji gave an understated performance as Tamura as he navigated the roads of death, clinging to his humanity, not even sure where his will to live came from. The skills of the supporting actors varied but most carried off the madness, stoicism, and fear so many of the characters endured. Filmed in black and white the movie had beautiful cinematography. You could feel the claustrophobia of the jungle not knowing where the danger could come from, the muddy paths and rocky ground under bare or near bare feet. The music perfectly reflected the feelings of the characters and the situations they found themselves in. I'm not a film student but I can say this was well made and edited in the eyes of an amateur.
Fires on the Plain showed desperate men and what they would do and would not do to survive when left abandoned without hope or rescue. Though it could be starkly pessimistic in its view of war, tiny rays of hope pierced the gloom on occasion keeping it from being overtly oppressive. Fires on the Plain might not be for everyone but it is a movie I will not soon forget.
8/30/22
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After an amazing first movie, they somehow completely butchered the sequels.
The first of the original 3 Rurouni Kenshin live-action movies was absolutely brilliant (as I elaborated on in detail in my review for that entry). Unfortunately, however, the second and third installments of the live-action trilogy are not only not anywhere near as good as the first (either overall or in terms of adaptation), they're really just not very good movies, period (nor are either of them standalone). Don't get me wrong, the production, fight choreography, and acting are (mostly) all still at the same level (indeed, the fight with the dual-blade-wielder in movie 2 is at least worth watching just on its own), but movie 2 is otherwise quite forgettable, some of the violence becomes overly OTT to the point of tastelessness by movie 3, the story is bizarrely (and fruitlessly) butchered to hell and back, and-- most egregiously-- the characterization flies right out the window, utterly ruining one of the manga's more interesting characters and caricaturizing more than several others.TL;DR: Don't watch these 'sequels' 😕-- just leave it at watching the excellent first one (and then read the manga afterwards instead).
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