The actors/actresses all did a WONDERFUL job and the actor who played the main radio host was perfect for his character. I loved the cinematography and the many scenes where you viewed above the city during day and night were gorgeous. I really enjoyed the music composed for this film and every track fit each scene wonderfully.
The film does really well with showing you the struggles and personalities of all the characters involved and was more realistic with outcome. It's less of a rom-com that feeds you an unoriginal fairy tale romance and more of a modern day take on the ups & downs of the relationships you experience in life.
It was funny.
It was lovely.
It was quirky.
It was heartbreaking.
And it shows you that sometimes things work out, while other times they don't.
I wasn't bored once.
(Also, Yang Yang is adoooraaaable)
GOOD MOVIE!
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However, one thing that definitely was atypical, was the fantastic score and soundtrack.
I would actually even recommend you watch this film just for the music.
Which is also why the rewatch value is a little high.
The acting was solid, no complaints there.
But oh boy the music.
Please go and watch it even if it's just for the music.
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What made me love this film aside from the cast, the acting skills, and the scenes was the music used. It was like heaven. Well since the film is all about disk jockeys (DJs) I guess its reasonable to have a good choice for music. Its quite good film though. Try watching it. :-)
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Following the love stories of three men, I Belonged to You is a poetically written slice-of-life, but stands out even more for its absolutely beautiful cinematography and sound.
Given its slice-of-life nature, the plot wasn't particularly exciting or notable, but still good enough to find at least something to like, like the cute interactions of Mao Shi Ba (Yang Yang) and Li Zhi (Bai Bai He). In terms of acting and characterisation, characterisation was still commendable and reasonable given the short duration, and acting was solid, given the strong cast. But seriously, that is not even the main point of this review. Because it is in the absolute beauty that is the cinematography and sound that alone justifies making this into a movie format as completely worthwhile.
As someone who usually doesn't pay attention to cinematography, it must be said that nearly every scene in this movie was extremely beautifully shot - from cityscapes to character dialogue shots and nature landscapes. The aesthetics of this movie alone are to die for and 100% wallpaper worthy nearly everywhere.
However, this show was not only a feast for the eyes, but also the ears! The OST that I listened to before watching also did not disappoint, with amazingly appropos timing with the story, to leave a good strong impression without being overused. Even the background music, the soothing voices of the DJs, and effects of setting on speech were immaculate.
Overall, this would probably be a good light movie to watch to chill and relax to escape the problems of reality, with amazing aesthetics and sounds to recharge your senses, which would also make it enough to consider rewatching again at some point. :)
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This review may contain spoilers
Every day, we constantly overlook certain people in our lives because we take them for granted; the neighborhood police, the DJ(s) on the radio that we listen to every morning/night, a person who's constantly trying their best to improve our lives with silly inventions, a person who's trying their best to chase after what he loves, these are some of the characters in this movie and because they're mostly not "noticed", after you finish the movie, it makes you really want to go up to one of these types of people and say, "Thank you for all you've done." After all, these are people who you might have crossed paths with.I started this movie for its star-studded cast, Deng Chao (The Breakup Guru, Devil and Angel, The Four) and Bai Bai He (Monster Hunt, Love is not Blind, A Wedding Invitation), king and queen of Chinese movies (of course, not the only king and queen). Then there's Yang Yang, Zhang Tian Ai, and Xiao Yue Yue who recently exploded in popularity (Love O2O, Go Princess Go, I Belonged To You). I learned of this movie because of Yang Yang, but put it on my PTW list for Bai Bai He and Deng Chao because in my opinion, they've never disappointed me and probably never will. Most of the movies they've ever been in always deliver some meaningful/important message, and this movie is not an exception. From what I know, almost everyone took up a role that they haven't performed in any other project and it made for a nice, new experience.
There were some Chinese reviews that said the only good point about this movie was the cast. I disagreed and decided to write a little. This slice of life movie gives two sides of everything, good things can happen and so can bad things. This is NOT a spoiler, because that is how life is and it is what I appreciated about this movie. There wasn't anything I disliked about the movie. The director did an amazing job because... (if you haven't watched it yet, you might consider below a spoiler but it's just a minute detail that most people might not have noticed and doesn't give away big plot developments)
1. There was camera focus on people like taxi drivers, the grocery peddlers, grocery peddlers who have to take care of their kids at the same time, factory workers, security guards and others. People who (might) have a difficult time with their personal lives but still have the time to smile at us and sell us their service every day. There was also camera focus on ordinary office workers, students, and just ordinary people in general. No one was excluded in particular, but when I thought deeper about how many people I pass by every day without knowing how they live, then I connect it to the radio messages that Deng Chao says, I can't help but tear up and feel sorry. Even though I might not change how I look at passerbys in my life, but I think I might start to value these relationships that I have with passerbys.
2. Beautiful cinematography. Although there weren't a lot of city shots, but everything else was just as beautiful, from small towns to Daocheng. Not much can be said about how much I appreciated what the director included in the movie, I think it's best personally experienced by watching the movie (#sellout).
3. The music was absolutely fantastic. There were a couple of soundtracks that I particularly loved:
In This Whole World, Who Listens to You? (Yoga Lin)
Unspoken (Li Ronghao)
You Are Waiting for Me at the Endpoint (Wang Fei)
Love is a Crazy Word (Yang Yang)
This might be the entire soundtrack, but everything was just so amazing. Even if you watch the movie just for the music, I think that's already worth it. From all the Chinese titles, it's hard to determine what the English translations are, and even harder to understand in Chinese what they actually mean. However, when you finish listening to it (whether in Chinese or with English subs), you can grasp what it's trying to tell you, and that's how I came up with the English translations for the song names. Not only are the original soundtracks amazing, but the background instrumentals were just as awesome!
There have been worse movies than this, but I think this is one of the best movies to be produced this year. From the beginning, I didn't understand why the English title was "I Belonged To You" when the Chinese title's direct translation was "From Your Whole World, I Passed By". Then, I watched the movie and thought about this question again. Perhaps, you'll think about it as well as you're watching it, or maybe you've already thought of it, but it doesn't change this sad but hopeful feeling that I have. No matter who passes by in your life, no matter whether they're special to you or not, we should all be thankful for being allowed to connect with those people once in our lives. If we think about it, out of the 7.4 billion people on this Earth, we were able to make contact with certain kinds of people and that is one kind of ?? (fate) that we should also value. Of course, not everyone we meet is a good experience, but isn't it because we've experienced the bad ones that we appreciate the good ones? That is also something that I think reflects in the movie, and all in all, there are just so many simple realizations that you can experience from this movie that doesn't happen too often nowadays with Chinese movies.
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the acting !! of course, i've checked out the first five main characters' works before, so i already expected a lot from them. and they served me well ! the actors really, really brought out each of their own assigned characters and made them so realistic, i had to remind myself that it was only a movie. speaking personally, i'm an emotional person. i occasionally cry when it comes to sad, heart-breaking movies, and dang, this one's included. a few minutes ago, i couldn't believe that it was my first time watching it ! this movie's so underrated now that i look at it again, and i'm honestly quite sad. this deserves more recognition : it was a total masterpiece. i was absolutely hooked into the story, though, if i were honest, i did skip some parts. i would totally recommend this !! my emotions were riding a wild rollercoaster for this one.
(( i'm very sorry if this was a bad report ! it's my first time, and since i'm pretty late, speaking in terms of me not recognising this movie had even existed, but please watch it !! i loved it a little too much. ))
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All such emotions had been seen in this movie.
I decided to watch the movie because of Yang Yang ,his love story so cute,innocent and lovely ,his pairing I like the most but the last scene make me cry a lot ,still I have tears in my eyes while I am writing ,that scene so touch my heart that make me felt that someone close to me saying goodbye forever.
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