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[WARNING: the rating and review I give have the possibility to be subjective due to my preference for the genres, scenes or casts]"I want to be your strength."
Let's say that this movie give the personal impression for me. There's a scene and sentence that really happened in my life. Neither described my own scene, or the one that I said and I heard. It's kinda hard to watch this movie. It's like your life is shown before your eyes. But okay, I'll leave the subjective thing and start the review.
First, I'll choose Ono (on theory, the fact I still choose MatsuJun) (^o^) But surprisingly, MatsuJun is more fit to be a teacher than Tomasu XD Before, I've said that I quite bored with student-teacher theme, but this movie is beyond my expectation. The conflict is quite heavy, wrapped with the good storyline. There's a positive and negative side on each role that you love and hate equally, that makes you can't decide if you will love or hate that role. Well, at least that's for me (^_^)
The only scene I know I hate is the last encounter between Hayama and Kudo. He shouldn't have did that!
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I usually don’t like school love stories, or love stories between students/teachers... but, this is something else. It’s not the classic shoujo happilyeverafter story, which is also why I liked it.
The relationship between the two main characters grows slowly and naturally and is something “more”, “different”, then love: it’s a connection between two human beings that need help and find reassurance in each other. A friendship, a deep bond.
I lived something similar and I think many of us have met that same special bond in their lives... I felt this story was very real. MatsuJun as always is great in his role, supporting cast is nice too and the female lead is convincing.
I won’t rewatch it only because it made me cry too much ??
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This review may contain spoilers
Needed more character development
The movie attempter through use of flashback to show why the FL was so attached to her drama teacher. but we never understand fully what the teacher's wife did and what was his motivation/continued emotional connection to her (I was not clear whether she killed his mother or just set fire to their shed). I think she would have had deeper feeling for her boyfriend as he was so in love with her and she was supposed to be very needy. If you have something else to watch. I would not waste my time unless you like kinda dark, depressive. unclear movies to discuss later with others.Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
A slowly placed uneven drama
The first thing to mention is the plot is a little strange. Is it common to come back to high school to help a old teacher with something in Japan? I know the schooling is very different in Japan and you have you have more obligations but the setup was a little random. I guess from a standpoint of helping out old friends it makes sense but then they added in the random swerve of Yuzuko's story!I get that it's sort of a parallel to Kudo's story and showing what maybe would have happened to her if Hayama didn't take interest in her. But it's really just a plot device to move the story along. It felt really out of place. The pacing and plot lines shuffle a little bit too much in this story. Thus creating an uneven watching experience. Somethings happen at a snails pace. While others are in fast forwards like the relationship with Ono and Kudo.
Now there are some morality issues in this one. A teacher having a relationship with a high school student, despite things only becoming inappropriate after graduation. It's at first shown that Kudo is the unrequited love but then after the kiss scene all gloves are off.
Some may have issues with this romance situation. Especially during their final scenes together, we have a very emotional sex scene that is stark contrast to the other sex scene. This scene however directly comes after a scene with exposition that would make the sex between Hayama and Kudo controversial.
The movie skirts the line on morality a bunch with how these things play out. We don't need to necessarily feel like these are good decisions but they are there to inform us how these characters are themselves flawed.
And unfortunately the second relationship doesn't fair much better.
The main issue I have with this movie is the lack of chemistry. The two main leads Jun and Kasumi really don't have too much going for them. I didn't really feel like they had any sort of connection. Some actors just don't really get that spark together. They may have acted fine individually but I couldn't feel that rapport. The ending of the movie kinda proves this point that the love they shared was different but it surely will be controversial to a lot of people.
I've watched Kentarou and Kasumi in all their performances together in reverse order and this was by far their most physical but also most lacking in chemistry. But that's mainly due to the type of relationship they have in this. It's very unhealthy. I honestly wasn't expecting that sort of outcome. So I guess that's one positive to this story. That nothing ends positively lol.
The cinematography of the movie is fairly ok. There's a lot of rain shots and sometimes what I consider a few artsy shots. The movie has a fairly nostalgic tone over the film as well due to the flashbacks. There's also the classic blown out white light that's so common in Japanese media lol. The music is mostly nostalgic or sad piano.
Overall I'm not sure this is one worth watching personally.
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La película se hace eterna, dura aproximadamente dos horas y se sienten el triple, una historia densa y lenta que refleja la absoluta falta de autoestima de cada uno de los personajes razón por la cual acaban en este triángulo perverso que, como bien reza el dicho "lo que mal empieza, mal acaba".
Por las actuaciones no hay nada malo que decir, todas fueron absolutamente creíbles, un muy buen trabajo por parte del cast.
Si lo que quieres es hacer que tu mejor amiga se dé cuenta de que tiene una relación enfermiza y patética, es muy recomendable que la vean juntas, de ahí no tiene más que aportar.
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