Reviews

bulldozer girl

The title “The Girl on a Bulldozer” is one that generates a fair bit of curiosity regarding the feature’s content. Who is this girl and what is she doing on a bulldozer? The poster, which depicts a petite girl driving a massive bulldozer as loose soil clouds around it, hints at a possibly gritty, slightly action-y content. In his Busan Film Festival welcome message, director Park Ri-woong mentions that this is a revenge story, heightening expectations even further. Having seen the finished product now, I can safely say that this is one of the most wrongly marketed films this year. This is in no way a negative remark on the actual quality of the production, and to be completely fair, it does eventually deliver what it promises, but Park Ri-woong’s debut is more than a standard gritty thriller.

Go into “The Girl on a Bulldozer” expecting a gritty crime thriller and one is most likely to be disappointed. Yes, there are bulldozers, but the girl gets on one for a grand total of two times in the 113 minutes of its runtime. The grit as seen in the promotional poster is practically non-existent. Sure, the revenge as mentioned by the director in his welcome message is exacted, but it doesn’t happen until the final few minutes. Despite all of that, this narrative works first and foremost as an excellent character study. It of course helps that the events around her are fairly engaging to keep the story progressing, but Hae-young is such a well-written character that it is fascinating to see her go on her own internal journey as much as it is to see her try and solve this mystery. There is a lot of angst with her, towards authority, family, society and life in general.

Slowly, as the layers of her story are peeled, this anger converts into pain, a pain that is coming from taking on so much and going against so many at such a young age with so much stacked against her. The feature’s title too works in more than one ways. Besides the obvious, Hae-young is figuratively also going through life on a bulldozer, razing much in her wake. Her anger gets the better of her in most situations, affecting relationships. Her bullish ways and thoughtless actions often land her in irrevocable problems. Even her ultimate action, her revenge if you will, is a cry of desperation, born out of a helplessness to think up much else.

Such a complex character would’ve failed in less competent hands but in Kim Hye-yoon’s, it becomes highly compelling. She may be only four films old and this is her first leading role and thus the meatiest, but Kim brings much maturity to her performance. Despite Hae-young’s vulgarity spitting, tough exterior and fist fighting ways, Hye-yoon manages to play her very delicately, bringing this briefly evident naivety that flashes across her face now and then. This is further enchanting to watch when her anger changes, when she knows she may be way in over her head and when she finally lets it briefly break her. That particular moment is a tender one, shared with her young co-star. The adults around her are effectively cast, but it is ultimately Kim Hye-yoon’s performance that looms large over the feature and the one that lingers back in minds.

The cinematography stays true to the production’s indie roots and the sparsely used music has a few moments of impressiveness, but “The Girl on a Bulldozer” proves an effective debut from Park Ri-woong, thanks to a very well-written character and a compelling and constantly progressing story, all of which is anchored by a superb lead performance from Kim Hye-yoon. Both she and director Park are names to be on the lookout for..

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Why Is Minori So Angry?

Minori is pretty and popular, lives in a beautiful wealthy country, earns enough money with a relaxed job, has good friends, gets supported by her family, and so forth but she is so angry, having ugly fights with assholes, even with family & friends. Why?

Ok, she was abused by her father, but it was a long time ago, so why doesn't she makes her own family and find peace, like Sachi in 'Our Little Sisters' (2015), like many other characters in J-doramas and movies?

The thing is this: She has a social awareness, so it's not only about her father's abuse, it's about everyday abuse and discrimination. She's well aware of the dark side of her beautiful country:

https://www.indiewire.com/2022/04/sion-sono-accused-sexual-assaults-1234714367/
https://www.indiewire.com/2022/06/naomi-kawase-accused-violence-on-set-1234731431/
https://www.republicworld.com/entertainment-news/rest-of-the-world/japanese-filmmaker-actor-caught-in-number-metoo-allegations-film-release-put-on-hold-articleshow.html

I just hope instead of ugly useless personal fights, she'll find angry women and men like herself, so collectively fight for social change.

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A hefty dose of fatphobia on a platter

First up I did not watch nor read the source material, this is solely based as a first time watcher of this movie on its own.

I watched this because i love Miu's acting and wanted to see her as a co-lead. Unfortunately with her being cast you can always somehow expect stereotypes and hatefulness to be the theme, even if underlying. I really thought I was prepared based on the synopsis but the fatphobia was even worse than anticipated.

Lines were dropped that truly had my mouth agape in shock, which is rare. They did try once or twice to get two of the guys to point out how superficial those statements were but not once did anyone mention how fucked up it really was nor did the other guys get taught any lesson. Instead it was pushed aside and they went straight back to the main issue pretending like suddenly it wasnt an issue anymore at all.

"I will make her lose weight. Her personality is great and we know she can be beautiful when she's thin" I wont forget that line for a long time, in the most negative sense.

As someone with an eating disorder, I felt shit watching this movie and i feel shit after, despite having enjoyed the comedy and music aspects. I used to be a Fujoshi as a teen so I did have some genuine laughs about the otaku behavior but unfortunately the joy wasnt allowed to stick. Everything else made me wanna throw up and actually made me respect Miu as an actress even more.

Japan has a lot to work on when it comes to beauty standards and fatphobia I know that but it is never an excuse. To watch this movie made in 2020 display fatphobia like its 2001 is honestly disgusting. I do not recommend watching this movie as i believe it to be extremely harmful for any young girls (as well as women with body image issues of all ages) who comes across this, and any other media with this premise.

Overall just a comedy movie pushing the superficial narrative that Japanese media loves: that being liked for your looks is a goal and that you will only be truly loved and persuaded when you're thin. They had the chance to teach a valuable lesson about everyone being beuatiful how they are as long as they are happy and that everyone deserves love, but they blew it. Garbage.

Anyway, this isnt related to the movie but always remember weight has nothing to do with beauty.

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WTF!!

Like I said in the headline, WTF did I just watch?? I will say this is different than any other movie I’ve seen, but that’s not a good thing. No dialogue, yep you read that right, nothing. The acting was good. I guess rather than dialogue, you are supposed to just watch the emotions in their faces? There is gang rape, incest, castration, murder, suicide, sex, nudity, love, hate…. Just all very weird right up to the ending. Watch it if you are curious and don’t mind everything I’ve mentioned. But, I just can’t figure out why it was even written, directed and filmed. At least they didn’t need to hire a script writer.

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"I've Been Working All My Life...Now I Have Forgotten How To Do That"

First of all, my apology to Ang Lee...more later.

I put off watching this movie due to the fact that I figured it was a "copy" of Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) with a few changes, the same way Moon Lovers: Scarlet Heart Ryeo (2016) was basically a carbon copy of Scarlet Heart (2011) with a few plot changes...

Boy, was I wrong!

First the similarities between the two Eat Drink Man Woman movies:

Both deal with a father of 2 or more female kids, who are at ages where their lives are becoming less dependent on their fathers...

Both deal with a "getting old" father who has came to a turning point in his life, the first no longer to 'taste' the food he is preparing properly and the second forgetting the "small" details in his cooking, and his life!

In both movies, the single father has a problem with talking about important "issues" affecting him and his daughters (I said in the review of Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) that I felt the father's inability to 'talk' to his female daughters probably led to his pouring his love into cooking for them instead); in both movies their daughters are also better educated that their father's generation and also have a different outlook on life in general.

In the 2nd version, the father would not tell his daughters about his medial diagnosis, until it started making them worry about him.

There is no returning cast members or director between the two movies but they both leave you with a sense of tranquility and that "everything is gonna be alright" for the households of both movies.

Both movies had actors/actresses who made you feel they were part of a established family the way they responded to each other, in the range of the director's wishes.

Supporting cast in both movies were excellent in their individual side stories and their support of the main story being told by the main actors/actresses...

Let me get back to Ang Lee: I want to apologize to him since i am giving EDMW-2 a higher rating that his original movie, but only by 0.5 of a point!

Ang Lee is known for his 'twists' he throws in his movies just after you think you have figured out everything about his movie and you have already told your friends how the movie is going to end: EDMW is a typical example of this.

However, the 2nd version has a more melodramatic 'twist' one that is sure to send some women into their tissue supply!

Tang Shi Zhe [Wa Er's father/restaurant owner] (Kenneth Tsang) did an excellent job of playing the head of the Tang family; and an even better job of "remembering' something from the past that he thought would never need to remember again, and Gui Ya Lei (Bai Ping) played a magnificent job being a pain to Tang Wa'er (Huo Si Yan) the manager of an exclusive spa and the girlfriend of Gui Ya Lei's "son" Zhang Quan (Blue Lan), who gave Shi Zje the 'reason' for remembering his past at the most opportune time!

Blue Lan did an excellent job portraying the computer-nerd boyfriend of Tang Wa'er, to the point I was yelling at Tang Wa'er to dump the jerk! However, he did redeem himself in the end and saved his relationship.

The 'twist' that director Tsao Jui-Yuan placed his 'twist' just at the right location and I experienced a great emotional catharsis for the couple reuniting after many, many decades!

It left me with such a sense of emotional euphoria and well-being that i wanted the movie to go on and show more of the three couples as they grew together in their personal lives!

I recommend a full box of Kleenex, especially for the last half of the movie.

I am going to look for more Tsao Jui-Yuan movies online as well.

RE-WATCH VALUE: Yes, especially with a good female friend

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A realistic movie

It's not a feminist movie, it's a realistic one. It depicts the hard life of women and how our capitalist and misogynistic's society treat them.
How women have to bear the burden of their entire family. And how motherhood and marriage are a trap.
But this movie show also how men are useless, how they do not react even when their loved ones are hurt/sick. How men do not react at work when they see sexual harassment, sexual violence.
It was painful to watch because it was so realistic, in every scene, in every dialogue, Kim Ji Young has to be the strongest one, her mother, her sister too. And the men in her family? Useless.

If you want to get married and have kids, watch this movie before.
If you're a empathetic man, watch this movie, you'll learn things.
I'm glad i have watched it.

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A disaster movie, yet using emotional + vivid suggestive power in the tradition of anti-war-movies

"Pandora" is a disaster movie.
I don't really consider myself a fan of this genre, which focuses on mass panic and adrenaline.
However, I consider this KMovie particularly valuable.

In this case I think the makers have succeeded in doing something similar to what anti-war movies try to achieve: deterrence by vividly conveying the threatening horror. In respect to the scenario of a nuclear catastrophe the movie applies emotional and vivid suggestive power, at the same time making people think and possibly question the sense and usefulness of highly dangerous nuclear power plants.
In view of the consecutive radical change of South Korea's nuclear policy six months after "Pandora" was released, one could say: the project was worth it. (It would probably be too daring to talk about causality, but it could be considered a noticeable correlation...)

The 2016 KMovie picks up on the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and, against this background, develops a story that is comparable by South Korean standards. South Korea is the country with the highest population density in the immediate vicinity of its nuclear power plants. However, due to its insular position, a realistic evacuation plan in the event of a disaster is a major problem. With the movie "Pandora" the lid of the legendary box is shaken. In this case, a nuclear power plant on the East Coast suffers earthquake damage and radiation leaks, similar to Fukushima 5 years earlier. The film fictionally exercises the processes in the event of such a catastrophe (or a comparable one) and comes full circle with a deliberately touching scene in which Kim Nam-gil makes an emphatic plea against nuclear power in his usual impressively passionate way.

Regarding such critically oriented material, the production obviously had difficulties with its financing - in South Korea the lobby of the nuclear industry is as powerful as anywhere else. Nevertheless, the ambitious project could be realized through crowdfunding.


------------------------ SIDE NOTE: --- Sobering facts/outlook on nuclear power plants in South Korea ---

"Pandora" was released in December 2016.
In early summer 2017, as one of the existing South Korean nuclear reactors was actually scheduled to be shut down, President Moon Jae-in announced that the country's nuclear-focused energy policy would be stopped and that the country would instead steer towards a nuclear-free era. Accordingly, plans to build new reactors or extend the life of existing ones have been abandoned. A sign of hope?

However, by the autumn of the same year already, the government's political commitment was no longer valid. The nuclear lobby has actually been able to exert such pressure (the President's faction not having a majority in Parliament....) and prevail that new power plants were going to be built again.
South Korea's nuclear companies make a lot of money by exporting their self-developed reactors. The companies want reference projects in their own country... it is as simple as that...

As far as the people are concerned: According to a survey by the polling institute Realmeter in 2018, 61 percent of adult South Koreans still firmly support their president’s original nuclear phase-out course. Another 10 percent tend to do so. Yet, the lobby as so often has more to say...


... To date, South Korea covers a third of its electricity needs with 24 nuclear reactors.

... There are always earthquakes on the peninsula...

------------------------

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A meh concusion to a uneeded trilogy

“It’s as if you never existed”


So after Tubi finally gave their copy subtitles, I was finally able to complete the One Missed Call trilogy. As a fan of the first, I must say that these sequels sure are a mess. Granted this one is better than the second , but that isn't saying much.

Like this is almost a good movie. The stuff with Asuka and Emiri is very well handled and Ahn Jin-woo is a lovable character. I also love how creative and cool the kills were here and the effects for them are awesome.

Sadly, a majority of the time is spent with a bunch of completely unlikable characters that only exist to die. Not helping is the deeply convoluted explanations for things that only raise more questions than answers. It all culminates in a finale that feels straight of the Care Bears or My Little Pony, and not a horror movie meant to be taken seriously.

Overall, this third entry was a mixed bag and I doubt I will be revisiting this trilogy ever again. Definitely will rewatch the first movie, but I will gladly avoid rewatching both sequels. Like both sequels aren't terrible, but neither are good or worthy of a rewatch either.

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a solid serial killer story

I'm not usually a fan of open-ended stories, but the more I watch Japanese entertainment, the more I get used to it. Because apparently the non-ending is something they love or they wouldn't create so many stories that just end abruptly with the potential for more.

Suda Masaki can be hit or miss for me, but he's definitely on point here as Yamashira Keigo. He gave a really solid performance. Oguri Shun as the primary detective was equally brilliant, if not more so. I really enjoyed his character a lot. He was designed with a lot of thought and care and Oguri Shun was up to the task of playing him. I'm not a "Hana Yori Dango" fan, so it's nice to see him in something else where I actually like him. Fukase Satoshi as our serial killer is new to me. I can't say I'll be chasing down any of his other work, if he does decide to pursue acting. That tends to happen for me when someone plays a villain so convincingly, it can ruin anything else they might do because they're just too darn scary. I like stronger females. I'm just gonna say it. So the character design and performance by Takahata Mitsuki as Yamashiro's wife didn't work for me. She was a little too prim, proper, and meek. She annoyed me.

I'm a fan of the "Red Dragon" movie in the Hannibal Lecter franchise, and this had several of the same components. So it's not very original, but it still feels like a solid addition to the serial killer genre. I wish we'd learned more about our serial killer, that would have been nice, but we can't have everything. I don't regret watching it and while it's not one I would ever go to again for warm fuzzies, I can see Sunako-chan from "Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge" loving it, so that's something.

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Shaolin Hand Lock is your classic Shaw Brothers kung fu flick. There's a secret deadly kung fu move, revenge, and a Big Bad with all sorts of nasty tricks up his sleeves and shoes in this case. I bumped my rating up .5 because of some of the lovely settings for the scenes shot on location in Thailand, also there was a nice twist at the end.

David Chiang with a terrible hairdo played Li Cheng Ying and Chen Ping played his sister Li Meng Ping. Their father was murdered by an old business pal who was hiding more than secret weapons from them. Lo Lieh with a gray wig was the treacherous family friend. Michael Chan lucked out in a role that gave him slightly more to do than his usual hired hand/killer role in these movies. The cast worked hard to elevate a convoluted revenge theme even if they weren't always successful.

Li Cheng Ying traveled to Thailand to take out the assassin who killed his father but found that the man behind the killing was more formidable than he could take on face to face. He finagled his way into being hired as a guard setting himself up in a jealous rivalry for the boss' attention with Chan's Li Kun Shi. Normally, Lo Lieh played characters who were sharp, in this one he came across as fairly dense. At one point, after being attacked several times, he suspected Kun Shi attacked him wearing a bandana over his face when Michael Chan and David Chiang are not built remotely alike, and the assassin had that bad, bad haircut as well. Dude, you just hired the new guy, drew him into your confidence, and now you keep getting attacked when you are all alone? Wake up and smell the kung fu sweat.

The story was thin, but what reduced my entertainment value was Chiang's performance. He came across more as a gloaty bad guy and not an earnest son seeking revenge for the death of his father. Lo Lieh gave a performance he could give in his sleep and in a few scenes looked like he might have been sleep walking. Overall, the acting was satisfactory for this type of movie. There was the ubiquitous nude scene early in the movie, SB couldn't seem to help themselves with these. It wasn't necessary, but at least they used it to come full circle later. The women didn't have much to do, although Chen Ping did have one decent fight. Karen Yip gave an overwrought performance as a blind mother. Shum Lee Mei in her only film role had to play a character who changed sides on a dime, and holy Luke Skywalker/Princess Leia had an uncomfortable moment.

The studio settings were lackluster. What did sparkle were the walks, fights, and running through Thailand. There were also lots of boat chases in the canal. Lots. I guess they were one way to move things along even if it wasn't moving the plot along.

The fights were highly choreographed stopping short of kung fu posing with a little wire work added in. The final fight between the three men was brutal and creative.

Shaolin Hand Lock was an average kung fu movie wrapped in a beautiful Thai bow with a sharp little secret hidden beneath. If you enjoy old kung fu movies this one is watchable. As always, I grade these old niche movies on a curve.

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Oh, this movie was wonderful. Truly wonderful. Sweet and touching and heartbreaking and just... so lovely. And Yokohama Ryusei as Rui simply shined here.

Rui's story was so sad. He made mistakes, terrible mistakes, and he paid for them harshly and just as he was about to start a new life, it all went to hell again, courtesy of Machida Keita's big bad, Kyosuke. Ouch.

The love story between Rui and Akari was so beautiful. Two people down on their luck finding each other and making do and becoming happy, it made my heart swell three sizes. Akari was simply amazing and her love for Rui - and his for her - was just... wow.

There weren't many people who truly loved Rui, besides Akari there were only two who wanted the best for him and who did not want to use him - the nun at the orphanage and his coach at the gym - and I loved both of them. The last time Rui and the coach saw each other broke my heart...

This movie pushed all my buttons, like all of them. It was so good!

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Really great first try for this young director.

I was able to participate in a talk where the director explained the original meaning of the title. That really blows my mind.
I kinda wish the title would remain like the Korean one: "Two women wearing the same underwear". This would let people understand more about the plot from the beginning and what looks weird would just become understandable.
Slow movie but I really recommend it. Really great technique for creating tension.
The value of using silence into long scenes, or disturbing noises too, lets the watchers go into a self-discovery about their own past or present.
You can see the real struggle in a really common family relationship!

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I enjoyed the twisted events and the strong plot
But why this Sh**** end
Why they should kill the ML why T_T
Why I'm doing that in myself
Why I forgot that all their movies epilogues are sulk, depressing and frustrating
I almost pull my hair

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