Reviews

Just skip this lol

As much as you may think this movie will deliver especially with such an amazing cast it just.. doesn’t. So much unnecessary things thrown in whilst we also barely get a story. This movie was empty and somehow managed to also have such a snail like pace. Shown a bunch of characters only to have them thrown out in a fight scene. Even with boksoon’s family we don’t know a thing … even though this movie literally surrounds her. We don’t know who her child’s father is even though cha guy keeps mentioning him, we don’t know anything about the kid, whether she saw that vid or not, we don’t know why her father was praying for her or what kinda guy he was, we know nothing about her mom either. Ofc we don’t have to be told everything but if you’re going to mention it you cant allow us to settle with bits and pieces. It also goes without saying but we could’ve done without the incest plotline.. overall just an amazing cast let down by horrible writing.

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Not So Ultimate, but Oppa! /The Bachelor Goes Fan-Meet!

This is another one of these stories that you watch for its highly predictability cuteness and fluff... for the reliving memories of dramas past... As the K-drama references are many and indeed lovely.

As we get to see the ultimate nice girl who is so nice, naive and slightly stupid that you will yet again wonder how she made it alive all the way to be eligible to travel Korea on her own. We also get to see ultimately good looking male leas one with some type of brain who will have you wondering why he likes his girl to be so naive, the other handsome but lacking in brain power making you realise you are better off not meeting your idol. We also get to see a stereotypical mean girl as well as some adorable girl power sisterhood...

Some parts of the production felt forced but I was entertained, and I am sure those of you who like this type of story will be too. If you are looking for some substance and quality you probably figured out by now that this is not the right place to find it If you are completely new to K-dramas you may still enjoy it but not nearly as much as if you catch the references made in the movie.

To be honest this 8 star rating is solely based on entertainment value and not quality.

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typical Japanese folktale ghost stories.

We all must have heard of told ghost stories during those sleepover nights with friends. This movie exactly fits into those ghost stories, inspired by Japanese folktales written nicely with a time loop. RE/MEMBER is the authentic, spine-chilling tale of Asuka's escape from a fatal time loop is well presented, exceptionally gory, with a heartwarming blooming friendship.

The movie was amazing for the first half when we had the red ghost chasing the students. But it got funny students are killed in a gory way but its just long shots and not scary with somber music. Apparently, students were more chill and enjoying their new friendship rather than scared to die a horrible bloody death. None of them was hysterical, if I would be there I would shout and scream a few times before going calm and thinking straight. Those guys should be applauded for not being traumatised for facing brutal deaths.

Lastly the ending credit scene theory
The missing child photo changes to Asuka, who is actually the female lead and survives until the last most of the nights. And the story is written from her POV, she also peeps into the well where she hallucinates about seeing bloody hands. So I went over to the start and there were Russian news articles of many missing children along with a body search summation. While people who participated did interviews or whatever they somehow went missing.
And the credit said “And then they become a substitute for her, becoming her sacrifice. And then they disappeared without a trace.” so I think Asuka might be the next target.
Also, a newspaper photo is of child Asuka and once Asuka said she kind of missed a swimming meet and nobody talked to her when she returned back, that was in freshman year. So it would be like taking her back to a time when she was a kid to create another time loop.
But for now, she is alive and well, maybe got a boyfriend, not stressing my mind over that she died.

Also she may be dead, but her soul hasn't disappeared, so she lingers in the school and helps out her classmates to find her own dismembered body. When she becomes whole and free from the time loop she is being visible to others.

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나가 느편 해줄 테니 너는 느 원대로 살라! 할망이 모든 거 다 해줄 거야.

For starters, the translation of the title is "Grandma Gye Chun", not Canola. I guess because it might be hard to remember for foreign viewers.

?️The Jeju Island atmosphere of the drama Our Blues is one of my favorites in Korean cinema. This movie might have a messy screenplay, a couple of unfinished parts and some misleading unexplained moments, but it also has many beautifully shot scenes and heartwarming dialogues, e.g. Hye Ji going diving with her granny. Later she draws a picture of them holding hands underwater and floating in the deep ocean up to the light. It also reveals another person who was as close to them. Honestly, that picture got me crying. My big admiration for the artist who painted it. If you saw it you know what I'm talking about.

Another great part is acting. Kim Go Eun is incredible as always. She's incredible. That's it. I admire her. I do.

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Love or lust at first sight

We meet an attractive girl about to be married to her fiance. They have been together for 7 years and they have lost the spark and heady rush of love.

An attractive stranger, whose business has just failed and he tells us is leaving for Zanzibar the next day, flirts with our FL. She responds to the attention and his childlike recklessness. Their actions lead to making love in an empty building. Thus begins a 24 hour sexual adventure with both parties giving no details about their identities.

This dangerous liaison explores a no holds barred encounter that is liberating because of its finite time. Even when the fiance is confronted with her infidelity we are shown his casual acceptance, hinting at his own acceptance that affairs will occur in a long term marriage.

During their encounter the girl tries to walk away and return to her more rational self, however, the heady excitement of sex with a good looking and willing stranger over rules her and causes her to return each time.

As with most brief fantasies, as the departure time begins to encroach, doubts and longings are experienced by both parties.

Their motives are not explained and perhaps were not fully understood by them either. The ending has a poignancy that is depicted by the drawing of their hands on the park bench.

We are left with the question 'what if' and are free to interpret how we may have handled the affair either as; the stranger, the unfaithful partner or the cuckolded fiance.

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Most annoying action film I've ever watched

Let me start by saying I'm a sucker for these kinda movies. That being said the idea is nothing new but I don't care how many times a similar idea has been executed I'll still watch it and probably find it good.

BUT .... these have to be the most annoying characters (across the board) I've ever watched in an action movie. From the stupidest cops (which to be fair is kind of expected but then they are extremely rude and primitive without any apparent reason) to the lead that is so incompetent that it's beyond pitty and he basically turns into a piece of furniture not even third of the movie in. After suffering with all these annoying characters for the whole movie, the ending in completely bland and unsatisfactory and leaves you feeling angry and cheated.

All in all a big skip and a waste of time.

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"We don't need philosophy. We need a break."

The Warrior's Gate was a clunky but affable wish fulfillment for if not teenage boys, twelve-year-old gamer boys. The movie was reminiscent of The Forbidden Kingdom only without actual martial artists in it and any real danger for the main characters.

A teenaged boy named Jack spends most of his time playing a video game as the Black Knight. His house is about to be foreclosed on which doesn't seem to bother him much. After school he works in an antique shop for Mr. Chang who gifts him a large Chinese basket/box. The next thing Jack knows Warrior Zhao (Mark Chao) and Princess Su Lin (Ni Ni) pop out of it looking for his help thinking he is the great warrior The Black Knight. Jack ends up guiding the English speaking Ni Ni through his world, taking her to the mall. When the bad guys show up to kidnap the princess, Jack has to follow them into the basket which takes him to what is supposed to be ye olden times China. Warrior Zhao and a wizard accompany him to help him free the princess with sword and magic. Along their journey, Jack teaches Zhao to break dance and swim. Dave Bautista plays Arun the Cruel, the Horrible, the Terrible, the Miserable who wants to marry the princess who is to become the Empress giving him the fast track to becoming Emperor.

Uriah Shelton was soft and non-threatening as the fish out of water who became a fighter, wooed a princess, and taught Zhao that he needed to take time to have fun. Mark Chao made for a believable warrior and was able to play the straight man to several jokes. He was so darn sexy and capable that it was hard to accept the Caucasian, timid teenager as being of any use. Before you could say "wax on, wax off", Zhao taught Jack one move in a few minutes and the next thing you knew the kid was capable of taking on battle hardened barbarians. And you knew that when he returned to the present, those bullies would be no problem and he would resolve his mom's financial problems with his mad gaming skills. Ni Ni was largely wasted as the princess though she always lit up the screen when she was on it. Bautista made for a large and properly menacing Arun the Cruel, with a few funny quirks. Francis Ng was fine as the strange Wizard who popped in and out to help the heroes. Kara Hui showed up briefly as a witch to challenge the two heroes on a narrow mountain path.

As a flight of fantasy with a thoroughly likeable cast it was not horrible. It wasn't very good either with cringe worthy humor and suffering from a white savior complex. The overly familiar paradigm was about as creative as white bread. Mark Chao and Ni Ni are such strong performers, it felt almost shameful to focus on the teenage boy. Also, the romance didn't work for me. Uriah was playing a young teenager (he was 19 when this film came out) and Ni Ni was 28. It was hard to see what the princess saw in him. Everyone speaking English was also jarring. Perhaps this film would have worked better as strictly a fantasy and not tried to make it ancient China.

This did not look like a 2016 film, but more like one from the late 1980's or early 1990's. Think Karate Kid crossed with The Forbidden Kingdom. The film must have been aimed at young boys giving them an avatar and showing poor Ni Ni in skimpy clothes. The beautiful princess of course fell in love with the nerdy kid. The inexplicable "romance" was chaste and anemic. There were a few curse words and some mostly bloodless killings if you were thinking of letting a child watch it. For adults there were no surprises in this bland and lackluster movie. It did overestimate how much this viewer could suspend her sense of disbelief on too many occasions. The thoughts that kept me most occupied during this film were ones wishing Mark Chao and Ni Ni would work together again in their own movie or drama with no fish out of water gamer to ruin the illusion.

4/5/23

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Ready your weapons as you dive in to assassins' world

It was such a great movie for me. The story is very interesting and logical. I love how it was portrayed and executed. All the scenes that led to one another makes sense. I felt like I'm watching an outcome of the outcome which means it felt natural. The trivial details is also a part of a bigger picture. The mother-daughter relationship is also relatable.

I love how BokSoon was perfectly casted. She really had that assassin aura and mother aura at the same time which made it more realistic to watch. Although it is a bit far-fetched, I want to see sequel for this movie.

It was an unexpectedly great watch. I haven't seen a movie this good in a while. I just loved it.

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some more, more like WE NEED SOME MORE

It was too short but goodddd. It felt like a summer love that only last less than 3 months, it was sweat, naked, warm, everything. Nothing was wrong with it, the age difference was also alr. We honestly need some more of this, the cast was also very fine.
THAT GRAB WAS PERSONAL. Sex on the beach sure is a concept, well acted. Also the "Long time no see" poster in the box lmao. I was prepared for a sad anding, so glad we didn't get one this time.
The cousing's teasing was cute, he was so real for that one. When he set the question "Would you stay here or the city", i just knew shit was about to get down.

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Keep you phone in bag and not hand.

It's centered around the aspect that mobiles have become way too essential in our lives than imagined. UNLOCKED, is a gripping and thought-provoking movie about being overly invested in smartphones these days. While this is not the first movie to undertake the subject, it did a good job of delivering a realistic wake-up call about the dangers of social media without any sugarcoating.
A woman loses her phone on a bus and her life gets worse as it gets hacked. The plot is simple yet engaging throughout. The plot is predictable cause we see through the eyes of the hacker, about his next movie. But the ending is satisfying, I thought it would be a lot worse but thankfully not.

I loved the movie's cinematography, the camera angles, the relationships between the characters, the depth of the storyline, to the suspenseful moments that made me feel emotions as if I was the one going through it.
This movie should be watched by everyone not just for the thrill of the movie but for most important awareness of how careful you should be with your phones. Not because someone will stalk you with the phone, but because scams and fraud could happen too.

And those of you who believed it is over-exaggeration or unreal, it may be dramatized but I have seen real cases. Better safe than searching for a cure
1. My phone got hacked and lost a few bucks.
2. A girl's laptop was hacked at my university and they could see her through her camera. She later told everyone to put up a sticky note over the camera if not in use.

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calming and mellow film!

I might need to watch this again but it was quite a beautiful movie. I love how all the piano pieces played were different and created such vivid scenery each time. I also liked how you–the viewer–got to see how much intricate work goes into tuning and fixing pianos. The subject matter should've bored me but it was actually very interesting. You could feel the passion from all the characters, especially the girls whenever they played. It was inspiring in a way.

Although the script was poetic at times, what I took away was more of the nature scenes that accompanied the piano scenes. This isn't really plot-driven at all and not much happens, just a lot of pianos. I'd recommend this if you just wanna get swept up in the pretty music and lovely scenery of the lush green forest.

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"Breaking one arrow is easy, a bundle is not"

A Home with a View is a rather typical Hong Kong comedy with lots of yelling and manic action. What sets it apart is its theme about overcrowded living spaces in the densely populated city and the emotional pressure it puts on the residents crammed into their homes. The overacting and nearly constant yelling could be off-putting, but the story underneath had a current of societal desperation and sinister truth running through it.

The Lo family lives in a crowded apartment which gives them no real privacy. They are paying a large mortgage in order to have a slice of visibility of the harbor. Tempers erupt on a regular basis, but are soothed when the family clusters around the small window and drink in the tiny tranquil view of nature. They live in a building with people as crazy, er, eccentric as themselves. Unaware of their own distracting noise, the mother picks fights with the butcher (Lam Suet) who lives upstairs while the kids yell at the old man below whose tobacco smoke drifts into their apartment at dinner time. While the father seeks peace with the neighbors, sometimes in an overly generous fashion, the rest of the family pretty much finds themselves in conflict with everyone. This is not just a failing on their part, no one around them is looking for harmony with each other either. The contentious Lo family's only pressure valve is threatened when a callous neighbor erects a garish billboard with Karl Maka's face on it obstructing their view.

Wong (Louis Koo), a lonely man who feels unseen, refuses to take down the billboard, relishing the attention. The family runs up against an immovable and uncaring bureaucratic wall of paper. A fight over whether it's art or advertising ensues. Ultimately, the family is found in the right, but the process for removing the hated monstrosity could take years or even decades. They can't even sell their flat as the loss of the harbor view drastically devalued their home. Meanwhile the family is slowly descending into madness without their precious view. The film takes a dark turn as they run out of options and coping mechanisms.

There were some odd scenes thrown into the mix. A truly unique teenage pregnancy scene where it comes to light helping a schoolmate deliver a baby will earn you a demerit. You also would not want to do battle with Mama Lo over a fish in the market. Every element of society seemed on edge in the manmade cement prison.

The family was not alone in its need for something to bring them peace. The offending butcher above found nightly peace in his pork pies. The old man dying of cancer below escaped into his evening smokes and eventually into death. The Lo family dealt with their existential crisis in a decidedly permanent manner. The film explored family and the people struggling daily to survive financially and with their sanity intact in the overcrowded city. The Lo Family united first at their serene window, then in their fight against Wong, and in the end…their madness.

4/4/23

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Amazing.

I feel like a lot of people are disappointed in the ending, but I believe that the ending was what made this drama, likable and realistic.

I originally I saw an edit on TikTok of the last scene which is originally why I wanted to watch it so I feel like I had a giant spoiler right from the beginning but because of the ending I want to watch the entire movie.

I normally I can’t finish the movie, unless I know it’s a really good movie, but I did end up watching this entire movie without getting distracted because of how good it was.

Great acting, good storyline. 100% recommend!

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Kwon Yoo, my favourite anti-hero

It's April 4th, 2023, and this movie is already 5 years old. Why write a review of this film now, then? Simply because I just watched "Fabricated City" again, for the umpteenth time. I've lost count of the number of times I've watched it since its release in 2017, but easily 5 or 6 times I think. That is to say, I love this movie. And I said to myself that it well deserved that I finally give my opinion on it here.

Is it a perfect movie? No, but no movie is really perfect, I think. As with any artistic work, there is a large part of subjective opinion linked to the emotions experienced by the viewer, apart from the intrinsic qualities of an art work. However, from the first time I saw it, "Fabricated City" has always been a 10/10 for me, and I still have so much fun watching it.

I'm not particularly a fan of action movies, although I can enjoy those kinds of movies if I like the main actors or if the story is well put together. In this case, it was because I was already a big fan of Ji Chang Wook that I watched "Fabricated City". But I also remember that I was really interested by it following the movie trailer. As I put it in the title, it is especially for the character of Kwon Yoo, played by Ji Chang Wook, that I like this film. He is, for me, one of the best anti-heroes characters I have seen in a film, Asian, European or American cinemas combined.

I really like the story of "Fabricated City". Nothing very innovative or particularly original, admittedly, themes already seen through other stories, but a logical progression of the story, with good twists, perfectly executed action scenes, a little bit of well dosed humour, suspense as it should be, and above all a very successful start and a coherent plot progression that keeps you intrigued until the end.

For me, the casting is perfect. Very good actors, all consistent in their respective roles, and showing skills and talents. Of course, totally captivated by Ji Chang Wook. I think he was able to perfectly embody Kwon Yoo, who is, as I wrote before, the perfect anti-hero. We can only love and become attached to such a character, I believe. Ji Chang Wook's natural charm does the rest.

The soundtrack is just perfect for the movie. Probably not the best cinematic music around, but it goes perfectly with the movie.

To conclude, therefore, a film to watch, and to watch again without counting, in my opinion (it is clearly the case for me).

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