Hanaoni (2009)

The girls intro was a little otp

The way they cut the beginning was too cruel. The director leads you to believe that the fl was repeatedly raped (there was even a scene with a gang of boys surrounding her) since she was a kid. But once she arrives at her new school, people comment about how miraculous it was that she made it to 16 uncorrupted (aka a virgin). Her life was still a constant struggle tho, which made her want to do self harm.

The ml was aloof and full of angst about his position. His backstory gave him a nice wounded prince vibe. But the ways he ended up protecting his little bride was probably my favorite part of the movie.

The nonverbal scenes were visually striking. Manga like. The fight scenes actually werent that bad either. Have seen much worse. Two of the guardian demons were pretty cute too. The second movie in the series is about the guardian/doctor/school nurse.

The music was unremarkable. The acting was ok. The story itself had potential, but the execution was low budget. And even tho there wasnt a lot of romantic moments for the leads, at least they had a happy ending.
So in conclusion. I consider this a strange little story that some may find enjoyable(reminds me of a campy horror flick)but others may find disturbing or cheaply done.

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So I got sucked into this one EXACTLY the way the previous reviewer did: the 10 minute asiancrush youtube video.

1) I was intrigued by the story since I love supernatural and fantasy storylines,
2) it was a movie instead of a drama, and
3) I needed a drama/movie less than 7.0 for my 2020 Drama Watch Challenge.
So I figured Why Not?

The story is great but the movie itself isn't executed well. It's obvious it's a low-budget independent movie. Shaky directing scenes, lack of props, costumes and scenery, film quality, etc. A previous reviewer compared this to Twilight & I think that description fits really well. The fighting scenes between the demons only looked supernatural in a couple of instances so there was definitely a suspension of disbelief involved that these high school kids were 400 year old powerful demons. That being said, I liked all the leads--especially the demon boys. The main ML surprised me; when I first saw him I didn't like his "look" but it grew it on me! He definitely rocked the traumatized demon prince part. The female character was not incredibly interesting so I didn't empathize with her too much and I really dislike the beaten-down-by-life-so-I-want-to-kill-myself element. She's so mousy...that is, until she's not--yay! Again, she's a Twilight/Bella type...not super interesting to me. I think the story needed to make her attraction more explicit so it would explain the introduction where she's constantly trapped in these aggressive and/or sexual situations with men/boys throughout her life. The implied gang rape scene made me really uncomfortable but it's out of the way within the first 10 minutes, so just suffer through it if you can. I wish there was more attraction/romance between the leads, too. I really wanted Kito to be more tortured by wanting/not-wanting Kanna and I think it would've made the underlying violence threaded in the story more palatable and symbolic.

I would say it's a campy horror romance type of story and if you channel your inner Twilight-twittering teenager and just understand that they probably made this on a shoestring budget, you'll enjoy it.

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