Reviews

silly is the name, entertainment is the game, (young) children skipping this is not lame

this is a live action adaptation of a manga and/or anime, set in a Japan reality that has been taken over by aliens that obsoleted the samurai class. the story is about a team of unusual characters investigating a serial murder which leads to a more sinister plot. depending on the parents and the society you live in, this film might be deemed unsuitable for younger children because there are crude jokes, violent actions, gun shooting, killing, cigarette smoking, etc. if you are or you are occasionally into silly, exaggerations (the bombastic), corny stuffs, and you are also a fan of anime and manga, do check this film out for its antics. it's a, you like it, or you don't.

humor sometimes pops out in moments least expected. the humor is plain silly. sometimes crude, often (over-)exaggerated. it is sometimes accompanied with corny dialogues and parody that reference a variety of other works. although this is an action comedy, there is an element of fantasy in it, and also a mild serious mood that weaves in and out throughout the film.

i am not sure if there is dubbing (voice over) in this film, but the spoken dialogues match with the lips' movements. i really appreciate that. part of what makes the film enjoyable is the actors' performances. the actors are deep into role-playing their characters, so much so that i imagine they are all hardcore manga/anime fans.

i come into this film feeling handicapped as i am ignorant of the Gintama universe, characters, stories and plots. but, the film is persuasive enough to make me want to check out other Gintama live action film and animated film. it is enjoyable, and would have been even more so if i am younger and/or familiar with the Gintama universe. there are definite aspects in the film that could have been made better, and hopefully the subsequent sequels do not disappoint.

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I went into this movie lowkey expecting a great action/heist movie type of thing with adrenaline and stuff. And in all honesty, it did not disappoint! It had some great action sequences, I loved the plot a lot, the whole trying to steal in a casino, just had me on edge all the time. Plus, their acting was amazing! (I would totally watch this purely because of SooHyun lmao) but besides that SPOILER {one thing that had me disappointed was that Yenicall never acknowledges Zampano when this man did legit anything for her like girl, at the very least I would have liked a kiss :/}

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SO BEAUTIFUL!

When I first started watching this I was not expecting what was coming. I randomly watched this long ago, and I just wanted some cute romantic story. Oh boy, that I found myself a complete rollercoaster of emotions instead! (And I'm glad tbh) I loved absolutely everything about this story, it was your typical bad boy-good girl story (and we all very fond of those). Plus, the fact that I just found out that this movie was based on a true story makes me bald my eyes out. Truly heartbreaking. It will definitely leave an impression on you and make you some type of way for some time just to gather your emotions.

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Pretty cute movie

I watched this as I was on an Arthur Chen binge but was pleasantly surprised by the acting of Haha He. The female lead is cute and not annoying, and they really made for a cute friendship couple. The love chemistry however, wasn't really there.

The high school vibe is pretty strong (perhaps because the main actors are young and still look like high schoolers), and it did remind me of my own 'summer'. There are also a lot of cute scenes that makes it for a pretty light hearted watch.

I didn't like the twist at the end, though. I felt it was overdone. And the thing that attracted you at the start (the actors being convincing as high schoolers) made it hard to digest when it pans to them 7 years later and are adults. I just felt that they were too young to be convincing as adults, and so at times I was very conscious of how inexperienced they are to acting.

Overall, it was pleasant. A lot of cute scenes. If you like Arthur, you'll appreciate him here. Definitely very much geared towards the teenage audience though.

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No monsters here

This movie has a comical beginning with over acting and magical auto machine guns that do not work like their real life counterparts. That's the first 7 minutes.

With use of a few skeletons from the local medical school and camera angles this titles sets a very creepy atmosphere. the bad guys are uncovered layer by layer and the story is told well enough.

There are some unneeded fanservice (barely clothed dancing girls and boobie shots)..but i am convinced if there isnt a boob, its not on the Criterion channel.

Editing wise we get some jump cuts that are disorienting you have to take a minute to figure out what is going on. All in all it gets a 7 for telling a story with spooky elements through amateur actors and getting it across. Suspense not gore.

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beautiful and imaginative storytelling, augmented by the performances, et al

this is an imaginative and beautiful drama with comedy that is sentimentally warm and touching. the story is based on the director's relationship with her mother, and is about a personal reconciliation with regret/grief, love, redemption, and filial piety. the director also plays the role of the daughter in this film. the humor tends to be light, silly humor through the play of words, and sometimes infused with exaggerated/corny dialogues and nonverbals.

the mother and daughter share a very close relationship. as the daughter grows up to young adult, the mother has certain expectation for her daughter as she does not want her daughter to be looked down by their relatives.. however, before the daughter could realize the expectation, an accident occurs that somehow transports the daughter back in time. in this new reality, the daughter gets to acquaint herself with the younger version of her mother. the daughter decides to reconciles with her regret/grief, and to redeem herself by trying to make her mother's more pleasant. but, the whole experience has a surprising twist.

overall, i feel that there are several aspects about this film that feel mature/ripe, well planned, controlled and executed. it's a 2-hour long show, and some audience might find a few segments that feel a bit draggy in this film, other than that i find the overall experience watching this film to be enjoyable. it's by far one the better film i've watched since the start of 2021.


//spoilers//
for me, there are several highlights to the film,
i) the actors are mostly unknown outside of China, yet their performances are enjoyable. i recognize only the actor who plays "Guangyin". there are the obvious observable exaggerations in certain performances. what is noteworthy is that this exemplifies that decent actors and decent performances have no direct correlation with popularity, having beautiful/handsome faces, and sexy/muscular bodies.

ii) the efforts and details to replicate early 80s China, even down to the hairstyles and army-like caps. also, if you missed it, right at the beginning, there is actually a green army cap present worn by a kid, and then later in the show there is another version of an army-like cap that common folks wear which is popular during that period.

iii) if there is dubbing (voice over), it's synchronized very well and feel natural. and, if you are familiar with the regional accents, the beginning part of the film is automatically obvious.

iv) i can actually sense/feel an undercurrent of emotion stirring under the surface, as i watch from beginning to end.

v) there are moments in the film that i am actually reminded of my Mom when i was younger. for example a) picking up different skills; b) often come to my elementary school to deal with the teachers and/or principal; c) my Mother used to play volleyball on a regular basis between late 70s and early 80s.

vi) it starts to get more humorous right from the 'failed movie dating' scene

vii) the entire final quarter is the climax

viii) the film is released in 2021. the setting of the 'present' in the film is 2001, which is observable from the report card early in the film. the majority of film takes place in 1981, just a few years after Deng Xiaoping announced China's open door policy.

ix) mid way through the film, there is an self-introspective moment. there is that moment of realization, if you change the past, the present will be affected. this is more of a modern concept. and if you consider the traditional Chinese belief that if something is fated/destined (aka meant to be), no matter what you do, the outcome will still be the same. compare and contrast that with Marvel film's concept, whereby changing your past doesn't actually change your present, it merely creates a new future based on that changed past. your present thus becomes your past, and there might be no you or a different you in the new future. however that self-introspection segment midway through the film has a continuity twist at the final quarter of the film.

ps. not related with this film, i just found out there is another older film with the same title, "Hi, Mom," a 1970 film starring Robert de Niro.

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One of a kind.

This movie is really special. I’m a huge fan of ‘Alice in Wonderland' and honestly, that's why I watched this movie. I was thinking it was going to be something like that but it was not at all like ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ However, this movie did not disappoint.

The story is very unique in my opinion. I’ve never seen a movie quite like this. The story at the end was confusing. It felt rushed and not well thought out. Basically saying that they were trying to fit a big and branched-off story in an itty bitty box. I felt like the movie should’ve been longer. If it had, it would’ve been way better. Other than that, the story really grabbed my attention and made me feel as if I had the emotions of the characters. I was rooting for the two main characters until the ending. The ending was quick and brutal. I never expected it, it was a little confusing. However, even after that, the story was still distinctive.

The characters were very well thought out. I enjoyed the characters and I thought the actors really showcased the characters' stories well. Also, the main characters and even the side characters had stories to tell. I felt personally moved by that because not a lot of movies illustrate the side characters' stories. The actors left me in awe because it truly felt like they were the people in the story and not just acting.

The music was okay, I did enjoy listening to it. It felt soft and it definitely fit the movie.

I would watch this again. Does it feel like this is my top priority to watch this again? No. However, it was still an unforgettable movie.

Thank you. :)

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It's an okay movie.

'My Bossy Girl' is generally a good movie. Would I watch it again? Absolutely not. But is it still a good movie? Yes.

The story is really the only thing this movie has. A woman with a disability does archery and this new to love, robotics, spaced out kind of guy are the two main characters. I feel like this movie could’ve gone in different directions but it just didn’t seem to go anywhere remarkable. I think the characters and their traumas needed more detail. The side characters didn’t get a story either, which I can kind of understand as they are ‘side’ characters. The two main characters' love story isn’t really special. I can usually find myself, in any other movie or show, rooting for the two main characters to get together but I was already an hour in when I realized they were going to end up together by the end of the story. That thought was caused by low conflict. I personally prefer feeling like they aren’t going to end up together until the last 20 minutes of the movie. Their relationship was built easily and their love story never seemed to progress or regress.

The acting was good and the actors for the characters were fine. I was not blown away by the acting but of course, it’s a movie. I don’t really expect them to show me spectacular acting in an hour and forty-minute movie. However, there are several amazing movies with great acting within a short time frame….

The music was fine. I didn’t really pay attention to it. So, obviously, it wasn’t noteworthy.

I honestly don’t think I would rewatch this. It didn’t make me feel excited and in general, was just a low-quality movie. That's just my personal preference.

Thank you.

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Short and sweet, well produced

This was a well-executed movie with fantasy elements. Storyline was funny and fit in the movie timeframe (fresh start at the beginning and happy ending). As always, it might feel a little fast if you are used to drama-long storylines, but I'm glad they chose to execute this story as a movie because otherwise it might've been really draggy as a full-length drama (C-dramas are always a hit or miss with execution). Acting and chemistry was on point and music was aight (fitting). Like a nicely-wrapped present, the ending was satisfying. I'm so happy they didn't try to squeeze in some sort of sabotage or full-blown love-triangle.

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worst ever movie

i hate this movie, so stupid....poor, is the writer not thingking cleary how stupid the relationship, obviously its bigamy....
the hell this movie

actress i hate it when she potray this kind movie big shit
stupid actor who accept how stupid her wife

married and yet husband allow her wife to live with another man

and you dont who is the father

because during weekend he is with his husband and weekdays to other man


what shame...so disgusting

......."..



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Nope.

Thought this movie had a fun premise, but it pretty much face dives off a cliff midway when one of the characters decides to kill himself for the sake of his experiment. See, I don't really think the movie justifies this. Not for two doctors who seem scientifically inclined. The doctor who kills himself is shown to have a pretty good life, however this little stint into the supernatural quickly convinces him that suicide is the only answer to move forward? I have a hard time buying that and don't think the suicide scene was earned at all. There's a sequence where one of the doctors' mother dies where he is thinking to himself "The human brain can go 3 minutes without oxygen" which is supposed to be set up for the audience to know that the movie is going to temporarily kill a character and resuscitate them (the movie actually does this at the end), but two supposed geniuses aren't smart enough to try this before resorting to the nuclear option? Just based on this, the two characters are ruined, coz if I can think about trying this, there's no way they couldn't have. This is even shown to be effective...

Now, after that mess of an occurrence, the movie follows the surviving doctor as he further gets consumed by the experiment, probably blaming himself for his dumbass partner's suicide as well. This genius also decides to kill himself which would render his partner's sacrifice moot, but gets saved by the ghost of his dead buddy. Lucky that that's how things work in this universe. So now you have this guy communicating with a ghost in the afterlife who's supposed to have the same goals as him, but that is not once realized in that final part of the movie. Basically, all the ghost uses him for is typing up loose ends caused by him spontaneously taking a bullet to the brain. Then the ghost's character flips and starts trying to murder him only to flip once again after choking him to death, to resuscitate him. So, maybe I missed the motivations completely and perhaps there's some afterlife fuckery going on which makes ghosts act differently, but I really don't see a compelling throughline here. I'm assuming the message the ghost wants to put across is to not let your life be consumed by something to that extent, which I couldn't take seriously enough given who the message was coming from (both, this movie and the dead doctor). If he really did only want what's best for his friend, maybe he shouldn't have possessed his corpse, bent his leg in four different ways and thrown him down a stairwell (lucky he didn't die there. That chandelier looked like it was supposed to land on him).

Besides this, I still take some issue with this movie's approach to ghosts being that easy to find. I mean, easy enough to just assume "this is how it must work" and then that is how it works, for every hypothesis. It's a pretty juvenile premise, but I guess I can grant it that for the sake of the underlying story. Too bad, I didn't really find much worth in that story. What I think is missing here, is the factor that changes the dead doctor's motivations post suicide, which the story wants to assert is that he deeply regrets killing himself and doesn't want his friend to see the same end. You want me to believe that his drive to further his experiment was strong enough to prompt suicide but not strong enough to actually help further that experiment coz of the regret of leaving behind his family and loved ones? Yeah, there's some missing character development at some point in here that just disconnects me from these characters.

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Beauty and the Beastie Fish

It is a nice fantasy movie but I wish the editing could have been better. The actors/actresses acted well, and the island of the sea demon god was nice, windy and pretty. The story and plot were interesting, and I believe all the film crew and production did their best to make this film. I really liked the look of the enormous legendary flying fish. He looks so majestic... LOL.
Overall, it is a sweet love story of a beauty and a big gigantic beastie flying fish. The beastie fish was cursed to look ugly, but pure real love released him and transformed him into a prince with godly powers.

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