Reviews

Friends or Money?

I think this is actually better than the previous movie since it doesn't only focus on the game but it also concludes some unanswered question from the previous movie and series. The game is simple and the strategies may not be that intense and astounding as the previous games but still, it's something to look forward to. The twists are good too. Their friendship is something admirable to the point that I dunno if it is still realistic or not. Indeed, money is the root of all evil that also cause all of this havoc to our characters that tested their friendship. Nevertheless, I hope they will continue and make another movie and see how long their friendship will keep their trust and bond together.
The casts were good but I would commend Ryo's acting. Throughout the series I think he did a good job portraying and expressing his emotions.
Overall, it's worth watching and enjoyable.

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Don't Expect Romance

A replay of the marriage for convenience theme. While there weren’t a whole lot of new concepts, there were some funny moments. The acting was ok. Ko Sung Hee was great as Hae Joo the 30-year-old woman who wasn’t ready to get married. The music was good, in that it didn’t overpower anything. The story was somewhat bland with an ending that went nowhere. I kept expecting it to ramp up into an attraction between the two but for some reason, the writers decided to just dump the ending. So don’t expect any romance. This movie is held together with a series of comedy skits. It felt like a writer somewhere had these comedy skits in his pocket and they decided to write a movie around them. There was no romance, no chemistry, no story and I wouldn’t waste my time watching it unless you are a Ko Sung Hee fan, then it was ok.

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One Wrong Sentence Can Change Your Life

An interesting movie is about the best I can say for this one. If the message of the movie was to point out how one wrong sentence in a conversation can change your life, then it was a success. Don’t watch this if you want to feel good when it’s done. It was depressing, a one hour and fifty-minute lesson on how to not run your life. I watched this movie because I saw a promo and thought I had to see how this movie ended. To my surprise, the promo was the end. Who shows the end of a movie in a promo? The whole movie was strange and pointless. Nothing cute, nothing felt good. The minute she came to the school and they had that awkward conversation about her getting married I knew it was going to be an awkward ending. It was like the producers got together and came up with an ending they thought would be different from other movies. Different is not necessarily better. In my opinion, this one missed the mark.

I like the actors and the acting was good.

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?????

this film has many problems, perhaps some viewers (mainly men) did not notice. the fact that Rei during the film says that she lost her virginity only at the age of 29 and that she had a relationship with a woman, there was probably sex in him too, as if her virginity was intact just because she hadn't had sex with men, that it is a view mostly present in men. another thing that bothered me a lot was Rei having quoted and thinking that she could only "complete" Nanae sexually if she had a penis, extremely nonsense. the obsession that Rei felt for Nanae doesn’t make sense either, killing someone who didn’t keep in touch for 10 years and who NEVER showed an affective interest in her .... in fact, during the entire film Nanae only showed romantic interest in Rei last 15 minutes of film, the most beautiful scene in the film is just one of the final scenes where Rei is in the cabin with Nanae and they talk about the past. the sex scenes in the movie are very long, I had to stop the movie several times because I couldn't stand watching it without saying that Rei spends half the movie fucking men even though she always says it is LESBIC, the scene she has with the taxi driver seems that was introduced in the film just to perform sexual fetish of the men who watched it, it does not make sense and there is no plausible explanation of the reason for the sex, at first I thought it was for money, but when the man offered money to Rei, her face makes us think the opposite. Nanae clearly uses Rei's feelings for her own benefit, it gets disgusting, and it seems that Rei's only life goal was to have sex with Nanae ... Rei knew that Nanae used her and left it just to keep her close, that it is noticeable when Nanae said that she called the police for Rei to surrender and Rei did not question whether it was a joke or not, she simply knew that Nanae was capable of doing such a thing! hitting a woman who suffered domestic violence? ..... this film is problematic in so many ways .... it is two hours of film made only for men to satisfy their fetishes, a lot of boobs, a lot of nudity, although the movie " The Handmaiden "also having sex and nudity scenes is completely different from this: the handmaiden scenes are more artistic and visibly beautiful, while in" She "it looks like porn.
If you want to watch a good LGBT-themed film see "The Handmaiden" this is a true masterpiece.

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A very young Jimmy Wang Yu, Lo Lieh and Cheng Lei team up to take down a corrupt magistrate who is causing his people to starve and kills his citizens indiscriminately.

Initially Jimmy Wang Yu, the main hero, is on his own with a few towns people who are trying to get a petition to the magistrate's overlord to bring justice to the town. Lo Lieh works for the magistrate but though a skilled swordsman is not into his work. Cheng Lei starts out in prison where he got himself incarcerated just so that he has food to eat. An unlikely trio find their way on the same side during the course of the movie.

The story starts out slow and repetitious, the sword fights rather dull and uninspired. The bodies start piling up as the movie goes along and Jimmy Wang Yu's character dances a fine line between being heroic and ineffectual. Eventually, the sword fights improve but were not memorable. The story does pick up as well as more and more people are galvanized into action.

Magnificent Trio has been re-mastered, the colors and clarity are vibrant. The music and sound effects came through clearly.
The subtitles were easy to read as well. It's worth mentioning because some of these older films have been neglected and treated poorly. The colors can be faded and the subtitles can run right off the screen. Thankfully, MT was lovingly restored.

I didn't find Magnificent Trio thrilling and the fight scenes were okay. What I did like was the chemistry between the three heroes and the sacrifices they were willing to make to better the lives of others. Overall I enjoyed the movie though I doubt it's one I'll ever re-watch.

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This is one of the greatest masterpiece that I’ve watch. I am not actually good at this kind of thing but because I’ve watched this movie, I thought of making a movie review about it.

The movie is based on a true life story of a Japanese doctor that was made into a song entitled “Kaze ni Tatsu Lion” popularized by Sada Masashi in 1987.

The story revolves on the life of a Japanese doctor Shimada Koichiro (Osawa Takao) who was deployed to a research facility in Kenya, Africa by a university hospital. The idealistic doctor, Koichiro was then requested to assist at Lokichiogo Field Hospital. When he and his colleague arrive at the hospital, they were surprised by the number of war casualties that is brought in the field hospital. He stayed at the hospital for a month but then he requested to stay there longer to help. Then, there’s a newly dispatched nurse from Japan named Kusano Wakako (Ishihara Satomi) was then sent to Lokichiogo to assist Koichiro.

One day, Koichiro met Ndung’u; a wounded boy who’ve fought in the war. Aside from physical scars, Ndung’u also bears emotional scars which was then later revealed on the movie. Ndung’u was then given by Koichiro a nickname Miche’ (short for Michaelangelo). Koichiro gave that nickname to Ndung’u because of the drawing that was showed to Koichiro (it’s a portrait of Koichiro).

There are some fillers on the story, which at first I didn’t knew where it came from. A story of a woman named Akishima Takako (Maki Yoko) was then inserted and also a backstory of Koichiro’s colleague and his wife who is Koichiro’s classmate during high school. At first, I didn’t knew who is Takako and as the story progresses, I found out that she is the girlfriend that Koichiro left in Japan.

On Christmas, everyone was celebrating and then Santa Claus appeared. HAHA. The appearance of Santa Claus wasn’t something everyone didn’t expect, even I didn’t expect that a Santa would appear out of nowhere. HAHA. He then distributed gifts for the kids and the last one who got a gift was Ndung’u. Everyone was surprised by what Koichiro had given Ndung’u and from then, Ndung’u had revealed the emotional scar that his bearing – this part of the story made me cry for the emotional scars that the boy was bearing has been opened to Koichiro.

On the night I had watched this movie, I really had to stop from time to time because of the external noise made by our drunken neighbour. I was only watching it from my phone and the headset wasn’t working so, I found it hard to watch the movie. As the story progresses, I was so enthusiastic to finish it in one go.

The portrayal of Osawa Takao was really superb; there really is no doubt that he really immersed himself into the role. As what I’ve read from the internet, he was the one who convinced the singer Sada Masashi to make the song into a novel and now a movie. Meanwhile, the actress Ishihara Satomi’s acting does not fall behind. Her portrayal of Wakako is something that amazed me. I first watched her at "From 5 to 9" (together with Yamashita Tomohisa) and thought that she may be something – which is now, I’ve proven.

I think the best lesson this story has to offer was how a person you meet can change your life. Just like how Koichiro’s life was changed by Ndung’u and how Ndung’u’s life has been changed by Koichiro. There will be a time that you’ll meet a person that’ll have an impact on you – this person may or may not change you.

The ending of the story has also some twist because it contains Koichiro’s back story while the song “Kaze ni Tatsu Lion” was played. The back story was something I didn’t expect and it made me knew what inspired this idealistic doctor to stay in Africa amidst the conflict.

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Brilliant Cast, Average Storyline...

Easily one of the most hyped Korean movies of the year, screenwriter-director Lee’s ” Seobeok” drew attention by the collaboration of two of Korea’s biggest stars in the industry, Gong Yoo and Park Bo Gum working alongside one another. However, something which does seem to have been left out in reviews beforehand in favour of biased comments upon the actors themselves, is glossing over the actual storyline.

Seobok is an odd fusion of drama, philosophy and morality in the first-half closely followed by fast-paced action with gunfights and psychic powers in the final part. It is surprising, but somehow, these two halves did blend quite well, resulting in a rather entertaining film.

The movie is the tale of Min Ki-hun (Gong Yoo) a former intelligence agent with a traumatic past. He suffers from a long-term illness which causes him to occasionally lose consciousness (mostly at times most convenient for the plot). Chief Ahn (Cho Woo-jin), his former cunning agency head, recommends that he be part of a revolutionary experiment that might help to cure him of his ailment. This experiment involves Seobok (Park), brought to life through stem cell cloning and genetic engineering. Seobok is a gentle, benevolent soul who is fascinated about the world, and morbidly about mortality.

Seobok’s bone marrow contains special cells that could unlock the secret of immortality. Unsurprisingly, a lot of people are interested in him, mostly for selfish reasons.After a surprise ambush by some military forces, Min and Seobok find themselves on the run together. If viewers can put two and two together, the screenwriting openly becomes predictable as the story moves along .

Admittedly, the action scenes are pretty enthralling, opening up in the beginning of the film with a terrific moment when a vehicle is driven through a brick wall. Yet whilst the plot does begin to build up to a satisfying climax, the pacing is ultimately slow in parts with perhaps the only reward seeing the antagonists get their just desserts, as well as some more profound moments of angst-ridden backstories for the characters. The philosophy in the movie whilst arguably risking the problem of being overwrought, did add a multifaceted layer to the storyline.

As far as acting goes, Seobeok is certainly headlined by its two main actors Gong Yoo and Park Bo Gum, who do not disappoint within their performances.

Amazingly, Gong Yoo was hesitant to accept the role at first and was unaware that he would be starring alongside junior actor Park Bo Gum. However, Gong Yoo later confessed that he enjoyed playing the role ( as well as being able to break away from his typical ” good guy” roles as a foul-mouthed and cynical agent), something which he certainly excelled within his performance as troubled protagonist Min. In a scene exploring Min’s back story, Gong Yoo captivates the pure humanity of his character in arguably one of the most memorable parts of the film.

Evidently, costar Park Bo Gum also had his fair commentary upon feeling fairly nervous with working with Gong Yoo in the film. Regardless, Park’s somewhat romanticised appearance as the mysterious Seobok, did not diminish his talents onscreen as both characters and their bond over the course of the film was fairly likeable and easy as a viewer to become invested within. Admittedly, the side characters were mediocre at best; not dire nor unwatchable, but the antagonists in particular felt formulaically one-dimensional.

As far as the ending goes it is more a matter of opinion. Some may interpret it as more a clever metaphor, whilst others may be less impressed by the abrupt and sudden conclusion . Overall, ” Seobeok” had undeniably brilliant performances by the lead actors Park Bo Gum and Gong Yoo who certainly do not disappoint. However, whilst the movie attempted to style itself as an intricately complicated philosophical, action-thriller ( and was successful to some extent in parts), it often struggled to pace its own storyline as well as breaking out of unoriginal cliches . Nevertheless, it was enjoyable in parts, and certainly worth watching to pass the time.

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Interesting plot with poor execution

I've noticed Japan's getting better with producing quality BL films/dramas, but they still have room for improvement in their GL.

My main reason for watching was because of Mizuhara-san, and I wanted to give Japan another chance for GL themed films. Also, the casting choice seemed pretty solid, and Netflix picked it up, so I thought, "why not?"

Although it was appreciative that the main leads have a connected backstory, the film's plot is all over the place. Mizuhara's character's actions throughout the film were quite questionable. I would interpret her character as maybe bi (?). The goals of these two leads made no sense to me. I could see what falling in love feels like, especially to a person you could never have. You lose a sense of logic and wish for that person's happiness, and sometimes you find yourself to be selfish. But killing someone and losing it all, that aspect and how the film executed it seemed very extreme and unrealistic. What bothered me the most was the toxic relationship between the women. Despite killing off the abusive husband, Nanae still was not free from the inner struggles. Rei's action, including towards Nanae, didn't seem sincere either.

A bit similar to my thoughts on "The cornered mouse dreams of cheese", I felt sorry for the supporting characters affected by the main lead's actions. Don't get me wrong, I felt bad for the main leads upbringing, but many of their situations could have been easily avoided.

OST - Music was pretty decent and chill. It was very obvious they used English songs to attract a wider audience. Cherry by Yui was a huge symbolic ost in the film. Nice use of it.

Overall, I believe with a better story structure and direction, this film could have been better executed. Hopefully, the crew, staff and Japan are open to considering people's feedback on the film for future GL films/drama.

If you're into the dark thriller drama, including GL, and don't mind switching off your brain for a while then, go for it.
If you're looking for a decent GL with a strong story and relationship, this may not be for you.

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Foundational BL but it's not good

The Takumi-kun series showcases a LOT about origin Japanese yaoi and why it’s troubling, why it’s addictive, and what a core foundation it gave to the modern BL shows coming out of Thailand, Taiwan, and Korea particularly.

Beautiful fragile traumatized Takumi escapes the horrors of his youth by attending boarding school. There things aren’t great because his coping mechanism is touch-aversion, timidity, and fear. Alone and bullied, Takumi is barely surviving until handsome, rich, popular Gii becomes obsessed with him. Oh and they’re roommates.

The Takumi-kun franchise (like 2 Moons/2 Moons 2) shot this first movie and then recast for the remaining adaptations. The second cast is much better. They did not, however, re-film book 1 with the new actors, except as flashbacks. I highly recommend you watch the fan made first movie version (from those flashbacks) instead of this one, and then 3 of the 4 follow ups. So here’s a watching order:

Takumi-kun Series 1 DaiMao Version (Fan Made recut via flashbacks)
Takumi-kun Series 2: Rainbow Colored Glass
Takumi-kun Series 3: The Beauty of Detail
Takumi-kun Series 5: That Sunny Blue Sky

Series 4 is about side characters and doesn’t add to the main story, but it’s fine if you like those side characters.

This original Series 1 with the different cast is okay (I guess?) and a more honest adaptation of the original yaoi (which is NOT good), but not worth watching if you're looking to get into the series.

However, from a heritage BL film perspective this first movie (but also bits of the others) showcases how Japanese framing, filming angles, body positioning (staging), and cinematography for BL using the origin manga as a storyboard. This filming style would go on to influence Korean BL in particular (see Color Rush) and is still used in Japanese BL today (see Love Stage!!).

All that said, if you want a pitch perfect Japanese yaoi manga adaptation with none of Takumi's issues, Seven Days is your jam. Watch that instead.

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A colourful depiction of a dark tale

As a passionate fan of fantasy genre and an old admirer of Chen Kun and Zho Xun, I'd waited patiently for this film to be on Netflix and I wasn't disappointed.....


Story: Fantasy worlds and Chinese xianxia with demons (monsters) and human stories has always been attractive to me and I must admit, at least in films, I've been rarely let down. I haven't played the game but "TYYM" has an interesting and involving plot. Story is said nicely and the pace is right so you'd barely feel it's 2 hours long.


Not having any prior knowledge of the story, at the end I was able to grasp characters' thoughts, motives. backgrounds and growth. Characters were introduced well and their first impressions kind of showed their personalities. World building and plot structure is fantastic and believable. Even though, I would've liked it to explore characters more deeply. Also, the film spent too much of the screen time to reach the bridge scene thus the last plot twist after that was a bit bland.


Cast: Chen Kun is excellent as cunning, mysterious yet internally struggling Qingming, he has a boyish aura around him that make him look the perfect young and rather vulnerable half human/half demon. Zhuo Xun is great as calm and powerful Baini as well. Their on screen chemistry and harmony shine as always and over shadow the supporting, younger characters.


CGI: TYYM has excellent and very real CGIs. I've watched too many CGIed films so I have many material to compare and I say it's good! Most of the side characters and nearly all background ones are monsters, despite this animations aren't glaring or cartoonish ( like Chen Kun's other fantasy "Zhong Kui and Snow girl ..."). Animals and demons' features are detailed and fight scenes are choreographed tastefully and artistically. My own favourite was Red Evil Ghost, lol.


All in all I really enjoyed this film and I would like to think the post credit animation means a sequel is in mind, since the world-building was so excellent and characters had potential for more adventures. Maybe in the meantime I would take a chance with the game!

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INTENSE!!!

I have no words to truly describe this work as I was left speechless after all that intensity.

Nonetheless, now that I’ve been given the time to make sense of everything that had happened...THIS MOVIE GAVE ME COGNITIVE DISSONANCE AND I’M LOVING IT. Amazing plot! Intense scenes! My heart keeps on jumping out of my chest with the blazing intensity!!!!

The plot was amazing, it left me clutching my heart not knowing what to feel. Human nature and relationships...what could be more confusing than this? Yet this movie made so much practical use of this confusion which made the whole experience of cognitive dissonance paired with that level of action/gore scenes a mind-boggling and heart-stopping one. This movie was DARK. It shows you the dark side of humanity that we would do everything within our power to look away from. This movie clasps your face, looks you in your eyes, and make you not look away at the capacity of human darkness. Yet, it also seemed lacking in that part mostly because of how they didn’t show much of Hwayi’s relationship with the other characters, which brings me to my next point...

The only reason I didn’t give this a 10 was because I would’ve liked more story about how he grew up with his “5 dads” as this would’ve made the plot richer, and the story behind his “stepmom” and how she became a captive of that house of criminals just because I want to know the whole story and not just fragments of what they’ve shown. Also, I keep on wanting to know if Hwayi intentionally killed that 1st dad or was it accidentally, I think that was an important part of Hwayi’s determination and actions after but they didn’t address that: only that he didn’t answer when it was mentioned but that could be interpreted based on how the viewers want and no other hints were given to make the answer sure :( these were just minor points and wouldn’t necessarily affect the whole plot which is why it only affected my rating as much.

Honestly, although the plot was amazing, the storyline was not as solid. But the thing is that even that makes sense and that this fits the premise of the plot more. Why? Because it’s a story of 5 criminals with different personalities and specialties, raising a child with a complicated and secret past that only their somewhat “leader” knows. That’s one heck of a rather bumpy ride.

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A WORK OF ART!!!

As a person who has been bullied before, I give this a solid ten. It reopened the wound, however, it also gave me hope to be vulnerable. I guess that's what movies are for, to let people feel.
I've watched this a year ago, never knowing that I did not let it end at its very ending. And rewatching it, I noticed the huge difference in the emotions I've felt a year ago and this day. I was dejected towards the notion that Bei's dialogue "You protect the world, I'll protect you" happened. With that being said, I was so sad when Bei's protection had to mean him getting executed. But I was grateful that I'm able to share this movie with a friend and that I realized that I was latching onto the wrong ending. To be able to witness Bei's consistency with his feelings towards Chen Nian was heartwarming. This is where the statement "Risk it all or nothing at all" comes into being. The series of events have that touch of reality that pulls you in, to better relate to their situation whether you've been in their situation or not. When it was the nearing end there's a scene when an officer, if I'm not mistaken, is telling Zheng Yi (the detective that has encountered Chen Nian a lot of times in the movie) "Must you drag both of them down", I highly I agree with that. Already sensing what has happened and the reason behind it, you should be empathetic enough to give at least one of them a chance. I can't blame Zheng Yi though, as I was looking for a laudable ending.

I was lowkey happy that Chen Nian, did not let Bei face these things alone, instead, she received her fair share of punishment. Hence, reminding us that she still cared. She didn't feel the need to be untroubled and just move on with her life.

The ending, I should say is true to life. Perfection. Bei walking behind Chen Nian, and Chen Nian accompanying the little girl. It still elaborates Bei's dialogue "You protect the world, and I'll protect you". This is by far the best ending and the most meaningfully constructed film I've ever watched. Every scene holds a meaning. No scene should be missed.
The surge of emotions was what I expected but the mark it gave on me, even 'till this day shall remain a recognition to the superb performance of the writer, actors, director, and every cast and crew.

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Nice aesthetics, lacking story

I really liked how this movie vibed in general, from the cinematography to the overall quiet of certain scenes. For what it's worth, the actresses filled their roles well and had some nice scenes together.

With that being said, however, I just didn't like the characters themselves — this movie was by no means character driven; there's little to no character development and I felt like the toxicity in the relationship wasn't explored much either.

Ultimately, however, I also just felt like the story in this was lacking; it didn't feel like a story about running or dying — I didn't feel any sense of urgency or even any sort of direction. The time jumps back to the past felt like they didn't have much of a purpose either.

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Family of Strangers

The movie is set in a psychiatric ward with each of the character living with a complicated past, that goes without saying, for our main characters: Hide (Shofukutei Tsurube), Chu (Ayano Gou), and Yuki (Komatsu Nana).

I watched without any expectations having only seen the trailer before when it first came out. I just thought that given the whole atmosphere, the show was bound to be emotional and heartbreaking.

After watching the whole thing (in case you still haven't, it is available on HBO GO), the movie has A LOT of trigger warning (Murder, Sexual assault, and so on). I can't say whether I liked the film or not, but it's human touch in the film will draw you in just like most Japanese films or dramas. Rather than a sympathetic view, it is a film about moving forward and living ahead despite everything in the past, as Chu said: "Things happen to everyone."

The film does live up to its heartwarming English title of "Family of Strangers". Each of the characters were depicted as a nobody in their society and this very ward itself has become a "home" to them. They can continue to live and has found friendship among one another despite who they were; the very depiction of that is very heartwarming.

Overall, it is a movie that has a soul. I can say that Ayano Gou has provided us another outstanding performance as his character this time.

I do recommend to watch this but be warned of the trigger warning.

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