Reviews

Poly & Ace Representation!

Overall: Though there are areas they could improve on, I'm giving this a 9 because it has poly and ace representation which is rare. I really wish this was a whole series and we were able to see how their relationship started and what happens after this short film because 18 minutes was definitely not long enough. Also, the filmmaker received $638 USD to make this film as part of a Matchbox competition and I'm extra impressed with that budget. Purchased for $3.88 USD and watched on Vimeo.

Content Warnings: none

What I Liked:
- they did give some information about asexuality, especially Minho's conversation with his friend (though the acting seemed a bit wooden there)
- I liked the times that they had good communication*
- the reference to Long Time No See (it was the movie that they were watching, I've watched it so many times I recognized it just by the sound lol)
- production value is good considering they had almost no budget

Room For Improvement:
- I didn't really like that quote at the beginning which makes it seem that polyamory is almost here. It's here and it's been here since the dawn of time.
- it was an odd way to start. I don't like when people take pictures of sleeping people and I wasn't sure how the two knew each other. 
- *on the couch at the beginning, do the other two not know what Minho likes/dislikes/boundaries??? Why haven't they had conversations about this? Also, that conversation in the bar seemed odd. Wouldn't the two of them discussed it beforehand? (though I did like the follow up conversation they had later).

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Hilarious entertaining heist

It is great to watch when you're bored or when you just want to have fun. It was a great idea of them to use factual artifacts as it gave knowledge in a way and helped the movie to become less nonsensical.

The color saturation they used wasn't much intense so it felt gloomy and of low quality. Other than that all is great. The pace was perfect, the camera angles were good, and especially the actors, they were very hilarious and all of them blended well with each other.

Side note: The moment I knew it will be about revenge I felt dismay but it did not affect the movie in a bad way.

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Unfinished

The Show Just Felt Unfinished. It Was A Good Idea And The Fact He Was A Cop Was Interesting But There Was So Much Left Unexplained. Like What Case He Was Kicked Off Of. How He Knew The Guy Was Selling Himself. Also How He Magically Became Gay Even Though He Was Disgusted At First. There Was Just So Much Detail Missing. It Kinda Felt Like The Writter Had An Idea And Never Got To Finesh It And Instead Just Released It . It Could've Been Great. It Also Felt Like A Psa That Men Can Be Raped Too Which I Loved The Message But We Didn't Get To See The Guy Arrested Or Anything. Or How The Police Found Out. Like I Said It Was Severely Unfinished.

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A Whole Lot Of Awesomeness

If you thought your board exams were difficult, think again because Class 3E is being tested on their assassination skills. Also ridiculed as the "End Class," the students of Class 3E are considered to be the on the lowest rung of the academic scale.

In comes Koro-sensei, an extra-terrestrial being with yellow tentacles and a yellow balloon for a face who has destroyed 70% of the moon and promises to do the same to Earth by March next year. In the mean time, he pretty much hires himself as the firm teacher of class 3E.

Thus begins the journey of how the students of Class 3E become the assassination classroom (title drop!). They get trained to use "student-friendly" knives and bullets which will be safe for them but lethal against the alien Koro-sensei.

If you plan to watch this movie for action scenes and gore then don't. While Assassination Classroom delivers quite well on action scenes as the students orchestrate and carry out assassination attempts, the movie is more of a light comedy with many heartfelt moments. The students slowly develop a bond with Koro-sensei as he teaches them to be better people, better students and better assassins (to kill him better! Hoy! Hoy! Hoy!) I did not expect to find myself crying (happy and sad tears) over Assassination Classroom, but I did.

There is nothing that I disliked about Assassination Classroom. I would have loved to see more of the other characters but I understand that the movie is adapted from a huge original material. More power to AC because I didn't feel any holes, moreover, I liked how they didn't concentrate on just two or four students.

The premise is absurd, the acting is moderate, the presentation is over-the-top but it is highly entertaing and engaging, surprisingly endearing and ends on a mysterious note about Koro-sensei’s past that will be explored in the sequel movie along with other graduation shenanigans.

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Angela Baby as Bei Weiwei is Another Level

I watched this movie first before the drama and read the novel after watching both. That was a long time ago though, so I have no problems interchanging the sequence of which to do first. Between this movie and the drama adaptation, I actually prefer the movie.

Let me talk about Angela Baby here. Well, as what I mostly saw in the comments, many prefer Angela Baby as Bei Weiwei (BWW). Like, why wouldn't they, right? Compared to Zheng Shuang, Angela exudes more of the cool charm with confidence and the intelligent yet easy going vibes BWW should have and what has the novel portrayed her to be. She's not overly timid when facing Xiao Nai compared to what I felt with Zheng Shuang in the drama.

About Yang Yang and Jing Bo Ran. Well, I honestly don't feel the need to compare who played better since they gave off different auras. Yang Yang naturally has that killing charm that made him shining, while Jing Bo Ran has more of the laid back personality. They both gave justice to Xiao Nai's character.

Now, let's talk solely on the movie, setting the drama and novel aside. For the plot delivery, it can be understandable after watching the movie. It can literally be summarized as Yi Xiao Nai He, the top 1 player in the server, married the newly divorced Luwei Weiwei, the only female player who entered top 10 in the overall server ranking. They then revealed their real life identities— Yi Xiao Nai He as the top student in the Computer Department, who's just starting his own company with his friends, and Luwei Weiwei as the beauty of Computer Department, Bei Weiwei.

All the important scenes and lines in the novel were delivered. Such as their meet up where Weiwei greeted her senior Xiao Nai with a "What a coincidence...", and Xiao Nai replying "It's not a coincidence, I'm waiting for you..." Another is when Xiao Nai picked up Weiwei from a meet up gathering, that iconic "As long as she's willing to be with me, I don't care about anything else..." My apologies if the lines were not exact, I'm only relying on my poor memory here..

Overall, this movie can be watched before the drama as it gives a good summary of the whole plot. Highly recommended !

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Unexpectedly poignant - Let me present an alternative angle

Unexpectedly poignant, while inspired by American college movies, carries its own message of responsibility, inspired by asian culture. The movie deals with real topics such as sex, consent & abortions while trying to provide it with some levity and not be a total bore while dealing mature themes. The humor is crass, dirty, sexual & funny? Well it depends on your taste, however, it is daring and does not shy away, playing chicken with the audience.

I can see why Ha Ji Won accepted this role as the film is NOT an all thrills and no frills. It has some substance. Although its heavily leans towards portraying men's sexual desires, It also pays attention to the female perspective and desires. The quality in acting that stood out for me is that throughout the movie it goes into a silent movie style, where the actors are relying on their expressions and body to act out the scenes. The supporting female actors in this movie are brave to expose themselves in a major film in 2002, especially in a reserved society where slut shaming, ostracising are not out of the question.

Overall, the movie is different to its American counterparts, and I say it is all the better for it. So far, it stands the test of time for me. Although it depicts an encounter around consent, or rather the lack of it. It is not shown to condone it, nor does it provide an obvious conclusion.

Its easy to dislike the film because of nudity, sexual themes, depiction of perverted men & women, lack of consent, drink spiking and dare I say date rape. But, this is the reality of our world. Perhaps this should be viewed as cautionary tale and one to learn from rather than enjoying in a purely hedonistic nature.

Also, its better that a film portrays these incidents as this whats faced in reality. The alternative would have been to ignore the problems and focus on just the 'wholesome' part of society. I prefer the reality.

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A great show for kids...of all ages!

Many of the online reviews kick this movie for the CGI not being "up to par" for 2015...

Most people watching a show like this are not critiqing the CGI, but simply want to see CGI that works for this particular movie. I liked the CGI here because it seeemd to 'work' for this movie!

Another critic critcized the movie for putting a handsome man playing the part of Zhong Kui...

Do you really want to scare off all the women watching the movie?

I often crticize movies for not being historically accurate, but this is a fable/myth/fairy tale/whatever, not history.

If you read the works of the (late) great mythologist Joseph Campbell, myths change with time and need of the audience, and more likely change over thousands of years of time.

Even if you know the original myth, does it hurt Zhong Kui beng less ugly than a couple of thousand s of years ago?

I found the movie refreshing, entertaining, and only a couple of places did it really show any gore (blood), so most audiences should be entertained by this movie without too much complaint.

Forget if the CGI may not be up to Hollywood standards, this CGI made you believe that the actions were actually taking place!

The main and support cast all seemed to work well together to bring about a good movie and only in one scene did I not think that the main leads may not be sincere, but that was just before the action hit its apogee and I forgot about it.

The cinematography was good, and I liked the angle changes on some scenes.

All in all, I think it is a movie that kids of all ages can watch and re-watch again, and enjoy themselves doing it!

Let the critics watch some ugly guy in another movie....


RE-WATCH VALUE: Yes!

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Not bad.

Yeah really not bad. Like the story is decent but it didn't give me a wow factor. Maybe I am just too used to watching dramas lol. Ost is almost non existent so i dont know. For the acting, they did well. I think they're newbies sonce never encountered them? Or maybe not popular ones.
All in all it is a nice leisure if you have one hour plus to waste hahah
The story started with Emei peeps having an epidemic. Most of the time they can manage it but this time it was worse so they invited a male doctor. Take note Emei is exclusively for female disciples so they're really desperate. The leader too was infected I think so she went close door cultivation. Then one time there was this male disciple from another sect who was bitten by a poisonous snake and need help. This male disciple was helped because Emei is indebted to his sect. This so called victim is the villain. He caused ruckus to get the martial arts. To achieve his goal, he made use of the fact that the seven lead disciples are scrambling to get the position of Acting Master.

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A very short movie - only 72 mins. long - about two gay lovers, Ootani and Tachibana, who have been together since high school, and their little bout of jealousy, brought up by their old female high school friend entering the picture again after many years.

That's pretty much it. Basically, a slice of life story about an old and never resolved misunderstanding. There's nothing deep or, I don't know, groundbreaking about it, it's just a sweet little bit of a story. But it's true that their little necking at the end was hot. It really felt like they were longtime lovers, familiar with each other in the most intimate way.

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Warning:
You will cry. When you watch this, you will definitely cry. Very much.
You will cry like an elephant, like a pig, like a monkey... You will cry wishing you had an arata mackenyu in your life. you will cry resenting the writers of this movie. you will cry because he takes on that role. In conclusion, you will cry.
I do not like this move. I love it and hate it at the same time. It is so sad. I knew what was coming- it is so cliche you will predict it, yet It still hit me like a train. I cried so much my eyes are puffy. and I am now suffering a headache that won't go away.
I also wanted to keep the rewatch value blank but they wont let me.... i dont think ill ever rewatch this. but i wanna see his face again. His personality- his character in the movie is what i love the most. AND THE MUSIC- SO GOOD.

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Noriko’s Dinner Table follows the story of the seemingly happy Shimabara family. While the father Tetsuzo continues to play his role as a loving father; talking his family out on trips while he searches for stories to publish in his Tiny Tokai Times newspaper, news that focusses on the tranquil Tokoyama with its blue sky, oceans, harbor, farms and mountains, he fails to notice and understand his daughters. The family starts to come apart at the seams when the eldest daughter, Noriko, runs away from her family.

She runs away to Tokyo and contacts Ueno Station #54, an online friend she made on Haikyo.com, a website where she found solace as it was the only place where she could talk about the ditsy rebelious side of hers, the side which doesn't want to embrace the peacefulness of Tokoyama. She gets embroiled in an absurd business which offers services to roleplay as family members, roles that nobody else wants to play, and in the process, loses “herself” completely.

“Everyone wants to be champagne, not the glass. A flower, not the vase. But the world needs glasses and vases. These roles need to be fulfilled.”

We are all playing certain roles in our life, we are playing daughters, sisters, mothers, brothers, father; we are playing at being a family. While the first half of Noriko’s Dinner Table is mildly suspenseful and mostly just confusing, the latter half is a psychological horror which propounds the fluidity of our identies or rather, it's fragility, which can mould and morph or shatter completely. Today she might be Noriko, tomorrow she is Mitsuko, then she is somebody else and then Noriko again.

Moreover, Noriko's Dinner Table is a social commentary on suicide and the ramifications of the internet. The film is an onslaught of depression and loneliness which has no cause and does, because why should Noriko feel so unhomely is a place which is so tranquil, with a family that is so loving? Is it because her father simply refuses to cover the story of the 54 teenage girls who suicided at the station and continues to print happy stories on the Tokoyama Public Library and it's cacti gardens.

This film, like any other Sono Sion film, is like the gamma waves that are unfoundedly believed to stretch our brain. Unlike gamma waves, Noriko's Dinner Table will stretch your brain.

There are certain Sono Sion movie moments that tend to stick in your brain and I'm not talking about the blood bath or the shocking complacency with which it is shown. In Strange Circus it was the moment when the girl was sitting in the cello; Noriko's Dinner Table has such unforgettable moments, for me, it was when Tetsuzo looks at his daughters through a crack in the wardrobe, at girls who aren't his daughters and somehow still are.

The most powerful juxtaposition in the movie was perhaps that of Noriko and Kumiko, the former who was once a girl brought up with love but feels hollow and eventually becomes a spectre of herself and the latter being a girl abandoned in a locker, who is only capable of creating an illusion of happiness but bathes in her chameleon personality. Noriko who ultimately becomes Noriko, and Kumiko who is still stuck in roleplay.

“If some people are lions, others must be rabbits. Some must die for the rest to truly live.” So let's be rabbits for a while, says Yuka, as she is surrounded by her faux family. Or perhaps they are her real family. Life is a strange illusion and Sono Sion asks a lot of questions in this tragic and incendiary movie, some which go unanswered, some which don't have one and some which are indecipherable.

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Wow...what a movie.

Now, before I start, I just want to say that this review is subjective. It is not a disincentive for you to not watch this movie.
Real, is one hell of a movie.
Real, in my mind, 1st watch, was about--sex, drugs, gambling, mob, Kim Soo Hyun. The amount of unrealistic bed scenes in here was too much. But I understand why it was added for some of them.
Real is confusing for me. Now after I was done watching the movie, I read some of the reviews listed underneath here. It makes sense now why Real was so confusing.
If you're looking for a movie that has a easy-to-grasp plot, this isn't it.
The plot is here, unlike what other said. It's just difficult to find. The writer/director decided to create this movie in a difficult way, therefore only few know what the plotline is.
That's why I wasn't one of them.
I couldn't grasp the plot until, what, maybe 10 minutes left of the movie? I had only just known, then, that Siesta was a drug used to get high. The antagonist plot, I didn't get at all. But, once again, if you pay attention to the movie (which I clearly didn't enough), you will understand the movie at a better level.
The acting--Kim Soo Hyun continues to impress me. He portrays the two characters so differently--without changing their physical appearance. The way the two talk, smack their gum in their mouth, their eyes and how they act on their own, their reactions to events--they are different. And that's something that I was amazed by. Jang Tae Young was acted greatly by him.

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Slightly better than Sexi Is Zero 1...!

Same group of misfit college students but love wins out on its own this time...

This film continues combine a group of misfit college students together in a college/university setting and show a good entertaining movie as well!

Using the first movie's typical love story format, a non-traditional college student Jang Eun Shik (Im Chang Jung) hits on the swim team athlete Lee Kyung Ah (Song Ji Hyo) but his awkwardness still makes it harder for him to seal the deal, as in Sex Is Zero 1.

junior swim star Kyung Ah meets and is then wooed by Eun Shik (after Eun Shik's first girlfriend from the first movie, Lee Eun Hyo [Ha Ji Won], leaves college) . Kyung Ah finally accepts Eun Shik, due to his being nice to her when others were not.

The couple's main problem is the lack of "bed time' between the two of them, a fact that both couple's friends tease them about!

In this movie, the handsome prosecutor Gi Joo (Lee Sang Yoon), becomes the third element of this movie's love triangle. Gi Joo. a student in Sex Is Zero 1, has now graduated college and became a assistant prosecutor in the city. Kyung Ah and Gi Joo attended high school together earlier and a chance meeting makes Gi Joo start thinking about her again .

Enter Lee Kyung Ah's mother, played by actress Kim Chung; she turns nasty after her daughter Kyung Ah hurts her leg and is told she probably would never swim again. She pressures Eun Shik to drop her daughter as his girlfreind and let Gi Joo give her a more stable future. Gi Joo, wanting Kyung Ah again after their chance reunion, tells Mommy that Kyung Ah can accompany him to the United States as he goes there for further education, where athletic medicine is more advanced than in Korea. Mommy goes all-out in a meeting with Eun Shik to remind him that her daugher would be better off with a man with a degree such as Gi Joo, not a deadbeat like him.

There is a few flashback of Lee Kyung Ah being bullied by the other university students; she was raped in high school by her high school swim coach,; wanting to kill herself, due ot the bullying she is consoled by Eun Shik shortly after she thinks of suicide. He who did the same for his former dance team girlfriend, Lee Eun Hyo (Ha Ji Won) in movie 1.

After being humiliated by Lee Kyung Ah's mother, Eun Shik decides to kill the relationship with Kyung Ah, though his superb acting showed that he was doing it for true liove, opening up Lee Kyung Ah to be able to choose Gi Joo and possibly saving her swimming career...

However, Lee Kyung Ah still doesn't believe in letting go that easy; she does not know that Eun Shik dropped off a birthday present for her after she passes out from too much liquor, but even without knowing this, Kyung Ah invites him to bed with her one final time, after a chance meeting with Eun Shik when he had passed his civil examinations. The night before she is scheduled to leave for America comes the most most depressing scene - Kyung Ah, now drunk keeps asking Kyung Ah to stay and sleep with her; both are crying: Eun Shik cries since he is trying to let her go for when her mother believes to be a better future for her, and Kyung Ah cries for what she believes is Eun Shik's final rejection of her...so sad!

Only at the airport does her female 'friend' remember the birthday gift he left, and she decides that Eun Shik is the better choice for her future! She assed out, saying that Eun Shik didn't even call her on her birthday, but her friend takes his call after she is passed out; he also had bought her the very expensive pair of shoes she had seen in a department store's window, when he was carrying her home from another night of too much drinking!

Weaved around this love triangle story is the antics of a typical mischievous college students; again this makes the two movies seem more live-like, in my opnion. As a former college student myself, even a conservative college in America's Midwest can admit that such antics take place, and it made the whole movie seem real.

I loved the specal guest appearance of Ha Ji Won, as Eun Shik's Sex Is Zero 1 girlfriend leaving college at the beginning of the second movie, and I also LOVE the fact that the director/staff placed bits of the hilarious "behind-the-scenes" shots of how much fun it was to make this movie ; many people forget that this movie was planned and written and shot for entertainment and not real life. By including the takes where the cast was (mainly) laughing too hard to do a scene right makes for good publicity, in my book (See the endings of the American series of "CANNONBALL RUN" movies for a similar use of funny takes by the director and staff.).

Even though this and Sex Is Zero 1 are rated by many as terrible movies, others say that the antics portrayed in these two movies remind them of their college years, although the movie antics are a bit "exaggerated"...

Minimal nudity (mainly breasts) exist in this movie as well, along with references to sex acts and eroticism throughout number 2 as well; NOTHING THAT WOULD OFFEND A 15-YEAR-OLD OR OLDER.

I thought that the cinematography of this AND THE FIRST semi fast-paced movie was good; and both the main and support cast worked well together, especially since most appeared in the first movie as well!

All in all, a very enjoyable movie, as the first one was. The only problems I saw were a) some of the movie seemed to be taken verbatim from the first movie, and b) some believe it was slow at points...I say, WHO CARES!

It was still anther good movie from the director and cast!

RE-WATCH VALUE: definitely!

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