Reviews

As deep as the budget allowed

After letting this movie settle in, I had an urge to write the review. Even though many might find the whole story kinda questionable, I think the overall idea was great. Rage, jealousy, sadness, and aggression could be psychologically explained, and I will try to do so in my own manner. Kurata is repressed homosexual and has an extremely deep fight within. We can see that from the very start. He has been in love with this boy since day one, but he waited for him to take the first step. I understand his character, being a person that does not go for what she wants due to fear of rejection, fear of looking weak… well just fear in general. I felt the character very well. And then, building a facade to keep himself safe, acting like he does not care about anything besides sex, acting out with rage outbursts when it is so transparent that he feels jealousy. All the emotions built into this character made me feel the movie intensely. As for Tozaki, I loved his gentle, kind, and patient side. I believe that these characteristics tore the walls around Kurata at the end of the story. I loved it honestly and I think about this movie a lot.

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Never repay hatred with hatred, it'll never bring peace to mind

This was a damn unexpectedly satisfying movie. I was seriously mind-blown about how this movie turns out. It hit the back of my head like crazy. This is definitely one of the movies that I can say, you can never really tell until it's over. The movie started as stated on the plot and it wasn't even half of the movie so I was thinking, what else could be there to tell. I literally fell asleep during the first 30-minute of the movie and decided to continue watching it after I woke up.

Apparently, there's still much to tell. The plot tells the point of view of the teacher however the latter part dives on the point of view of the students involved. The way they reason out things, the life they had that made them that way. It was very thrilling to see the story from their perspective. From this part it just went from 0 to 100 real quick. Everything became exciting and this movie became one of that movies that I will remember.

One of the biggest contributor for making this a successful movie are the excellent acting of the casts. I was a bit skeptical at first because they were just a bunch of teens and the plot is really dark however the young age actually made the impact even bigger. Kudos to them really. The very dark message of this message is definitely something I'll keep in mind all the time. If you let your negative emotions turn into evil deeds, everything will just turn out evil and chaotic. It will definitely come back to eat you alive.

I don't want to spoil the major KABOOM of this movie so it's better for you to just watch it. Trust me it will get better in the middle. Think of the start as the calm before the storm. I am so glad, I have found this movie.

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Two Buddhist monks wonder while they wander through beautiful landscapes and seedy back alleys, all of which are transformed into a temple in their minds.

The two monks may have traveled together, but their roads to the top of the mountain were slightly different. One monk, Poban, adhered to the rules, the other, Jisan (who had been kicked out) seemed to go out of his way to break them. In their duality of thought they were not that far apart, both were seeking to let go of attachments and find the real meaning in their faith and how that should be lived out in their lives. What was more important-prayers or action? Avoiding temptation or facing it head on? Being attached to the rules or breaking through them? From time to time their pasts and mistakes caught up with them, crashing through their thoughts, forcing them to deal with them and answer some of those questions. The conversations were dense with meaning and would take a third or fourth viewing for me to truly grasp the deeper elements.

Though years passed, it seemed ever winter in the landscape, cold, gray, and austere. This movie truly needs a loving hand to re-master it, saving it from the graininess of age. I'm sure the images were originally crisper and clearer.

Mandala isn't for everyone. It is slow, focusing narrowly on the two leads and their conversations regarding life and Buddhism. As Jisan said, "Attaining enlightenment is easy, putting it into practice is difficult." Forty years after the release of this film and countless world events since then, this message still found and resonated with me reminding me how timeless some films can be.

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Oh dear lord, this should have come with a warning! It's seriously fecked up & an epic fail on every level.

I mean...Come on? Really? What the hell was that even supposed to be?

Notes:
*Terrible sex scenes*cringe*
*Porn without plot & it wasn't even good porn. Oh no! Because if it was good porn then I might have just accepted that it fulfilled it's intended purpose. I mean, nobody watches porn for the plot now do they? But it couldn't even get that right.
The problem was that the sex scenes were god awful! & I mean really really bad & the kissing.... well that was even worse.
*Total cheese! Ridiculously corny.
*No chemistry between characters.
*Just weird & cringe worthy.

I can't believe I just wasted a couple of hours of my life watching this.

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While Pong has a one-sided love for the pretty cheerleader, Ming, May, also, is experiencing the same for the ever handsome and popular school heartthrob Fame. Through their shared one-sided love and being outcasts in school, Pong and May becomes friends. They tried to help each other out with their love life. As Pong starts to like May, Fame also begins to take notice of May. Now, we have a full-on love square. What I love about this movie is that in 2 hours it was able to connect me, as a viewer, to each character, especially the two main leads. I love that interspersed throughout the movie are the cartoons/anime which only adds to the depth of the storytelling. The movie is funny, sweet, heartwarming, and playful. The happy ending is cherry on top.

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Good Action, Poor Story

Available on Netflix and with its great cast, i wanted to give it a try. I am an amateur of action movies and this movie has its share of action, violence, combat scenes. Unfortunately, this is all it got. The story stays vague, the doubts of the main character, the love story, the political issues ... nothing is elaborate. The way it was filmed gives you this melodramatic vibe while the viewer will have to slalom between the violent action scenes. As a result, this movie did not make sense to me. It was not entertaining enough as an action movie, nor it was melodramatic or romantic as it tried to be.

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Something to ride home about

This show opened with one of the most heart-breaking and upsetting moments I have ever seen in a movie. Where children are forced to register as suspected homosexuals, I swear. Not to mention they were sent to a military camp... Gay, straight or alien, bishhhh, you will have to kill me and anyone that is friends with me because you can't take them neither. MAKE MEH CARE

The story takes place in a time when homosexuality was obviously taboo to the point of it being a crime. In this we find the two main actors who literally became friends by accident and became close enough to wonder if they are just friends. The story progresses through a series of moments that are simply beautiful for anyone to experience together, I mean anyone in any type of relationship should have these moments, the cinematography wasn't top-notch but it was still captivating to see the simple yet beautiful moments these two friends shared. I loved how they were allowed to remain innocent throughout their entire screen time with some clear fan service up in the mix. They got on with being two teenage boys loving each other's company, doing what teenage boys do without being typical sex addict portrayals.

Love and family also had a good contrast here, where emotions run high and things happen and things are said that may not be true but are meant within the moment. In the heights of the drama (pun intended) everyone starts to wonder what really exists between them and one thing that leads to another results in an actually heart-breaking disagreement between the two boys. If teachers were really responsible for the mayhem that ensues, WOW you all need a jump-kick or two. However, this was not the worst part, the worst part was Dew never making it to the Phop in time. I was honestly lost for a little while during the story, but when that flashback came, I wished I was still in the dark about what happened.

These actors did an amazing job and some of their best scenes happened to involve a telephone... It made me celebrate, it made me cry, right along with them. All the actors did a great job and I believed in their story so much that I had to yell at the screen a few times. The ending wasn't what I had hoped for, but the story was worth the watch.

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Very heart-warming!

Absolutely the cutest movie ever, it had everything I personally needed. A lot of characters and a lot of different stories is something that’s never going to get old and actually should be done more. The happy vibe surrounding the movie and then later us the viewers is on another level.

Every character was portrayed by the cast with such delicacy and each one had their own charm that you can’t stop smiling at. One more thing I really enjoyed was the OST, full of happy Christmasy songs, making the movie even better.

If anyone’s looking for something light, happy and overall sweet, that is the one!!

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This is a story of two couples who switch partners after university. And then, 18 years later, they switch partners again, divorcing and remarrying immediately. And then, on top of that, they all move into one big house together, the four of them and their two teenage kids, Miki, the main heroine, and Yuu, the Marmalade Boy. The teens start off on the wrong foot but after some time, they become good friends and then they fall in love. But then the real bombshell comes when it seems that Miki and Yuu are actually half-siblings, that they're blood related. But are they really?

Sakurai Hinako as Miki and Yoshizawa Ryo as Yuu were absolutely fabulous! I loved how different they were, Miki and Yuu. Miki was so brash, always saying out loud what she didn't like and not budging. Yuu, on the other hand, kept it all in, all his hurt and everything else, because all he wanted was for their parents to be happy - despite their questionable life choices! - for everyone to be happy.

It's a story about the consequences of miscommunication, really. Because Miki and Yuu were simply trying to navigate the mess that their parents unwittingly created by keeping vital info from them. What I did love, though, was that not for a single moment did the kids think that they were not loved. They knew they were, deeply. Even Yuu, thinking that his dad was not his real father, didn't feel bitterness towards his parents, no, he was grateful that his mom didn't simply abort him and that his dad brought him up as his own child and he loved them for it. It was honestly wonderful.

I loved it a lot. What a weird and not at all normal family, true, but also so full of love!

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Hou Hsiao Hsien takes a look at a 1980's family living on the edge of Taipei's neon nights. At turns, frustrating, sympathetic, maddening, and understandable this fractured family is largely held together by the eldest daughter, Lin Hsiao Yang.

Lin Hsiao Yang (Yang Lin) has a short temper, works at Kentucky Fried Chicken during the day and takes classes at night school. When she's not busy making money and trying to better her life, she hangs out with her friends and tries to steer her older brother and younger sister away from stealing. Their father pops in and out, usually when he needs help. A lottery playing grandpa drops by occasionally to deliver food from a squawky daughter-in-law and quirky bon mots.

Lin Hsiao Fang (Jack Kao), the only surviving brother, and his gang try to carve out their own territory by opening a shady restaurant. Unfortunately, one of his crew draws the wrong kind of attention from violent and vengeful men.

Daughter of the Nile's characters are never fully delved into with the possible exception of Hsiao Yang. The cast is large and at times unwieldy. Hou plops the audience down in a strange slice of life drama without explaining or showing us much of what the characters are feeling or thinking. Even when tragedy hits, it's kept at a distance, as are the characters' responses.

I can see and understand the craft that went into the making of Daughter of the Nile, but in the end, I found it largely impersonal and the performances flat. Yang Lin's portrayal of our only dim window into this world came across as shallow when it felt like there should have been more depth to this character caught in almost unswimmable currents. She dutifully empties her bank account to any man in need, without a thought to her own precarious situation. Most characters have few, if any lines, wandering in front of the camera to give some movement to a stagnant and untenable lifestyle.

Daughter of the Nile is an interesting social commentary of the plight of those living on the fringe in the mid-1980's. I only wish Hou had let us into his characters' motivations and feelings so that a real emotional connection could be made to help us understand their lives better.

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A heartbreaking piece

This is one of those movies that keeps you thinking about them for days after watching. I went in expecting a coming of age LGBT story and was met with something unlike anything I had seen before.

Well, the first half of the film is beautiful, visually and plot wise. Ohm and Nont did an amazing job portraying the innocent blooming love between Dew and Phop, in a way that it's impossible not to get attached to the characters. So, even when you know things are about to go downhill, you still hope for them to run away together and find their happy ending, only to be met with the harsh reality of things.

The second half almost lost me, not gonna lie. I felt like the change in tone was too abrupt and I was too heartbroken to continue, but I'm glad I ended up giving it a chance! Even though the age gap was uncomfortable, once I realized Phop never showed any sexual or romantic interest in Liu and only saw her as Dew, I could enjoy the magic of Phop and Dew's reunion. Does that mean I think this part was perfect?? No, absolutely not. The message that love goes beyond time and everything could have been conveyed in a different manner. But, working with what we got, watching them finally see each other again not as Liu and adult Phop, but as the two boys that fell in love in their teenage years made my heartache.

About the ending, I still can't decided whether it was sad or happy. All I know is that Dew and Phop deserved better. And that by the time the credits started rolling, I was left in a state of shock, crying buckets.

Since I'm a sucker for drama and romance, I did enjoy this film and would recommend it to someone considering to give it a try. I also plan to rewatch it someday, if the sole memory of Dew and Phop ever stops giving me the urge to cry.

In general, the actors definitely deserve recognition for their brilliant performances, specially Ohm and Nont. I hope to see them together again in another project one day!

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