Even though I knew this was going to be a "Sad Fairytale", I was completely not expecting the ending. It completely threw me off. As Chinese movies go, I really loved this one. It was simple and started off hilarious. I loved the actors/actresses. They were great at their roles and none of them were annoying! I've never watched anything like this movie before, the story line is completely new to me. This movie is like a really sweet candy that also leaves a bitter sweet taste when it's done. If you want a bit of romance, a bit of comedy, a bit of sweetness and a bit of bitter, you might want to try this movie out.

So simply saying:

STORY: I feel like it's original. Liu Tong secretly likes Yang Jia and always helps her out in crucial situations. But one day, Yang Jia faints in front of her boss, who's been pressuring her to get into a relationship with him. She's diagnosed with this rare disease where she can faint at any moment if she is put under any pressure. Every time she faints, she says that she goes back to the Qing dynasty. Her friend tells her that she's time travelling. No one really believes her that she's time travelling but Liu Tong does and decides to help her time travel.

ACTING/CAST: I watched this movie at first because of Liu Shi Shi (Yang Jia). I loved every actor/actress in this movie. None of them were annoying, and I think I might have fell in love with the actor who plays Liu Tong. Though it's kind of boring to see Liu Shi Shi play the innocent maiden all the time, it felt really right. The comedy parts seemed all natural and not a bit forced.

MUSIC: The music was great. Loved the ending song. The music synced well with the events in the plot. It made the story nice to watch and made it not so boring.

REWATCH VALUE: Definitely will rewatch really soon. It's one of those dramas where you probably watch it once and you'll want to watch it a second time, to catch all the things you missed. Then maybe a third time because now everything is understood and it's just a really sweet movie.

Read More

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.

Read More

Compared to the previous movie, this film was based more on emotions rather than cases, corruption and schemes. Each character is further developed through the showcase of emotions as events happen right after another. Wu Qing is experiencing the turmoil within her as she realizes the 12 killers who murdered her entire family aren't dead. As they unravel the case and go back to the past, new incidents occur, causing misunderstandings, distrust, and pain. Bonds are broken, new ones are revealed. What we didn't know in the first movie, or what we assumed, are revealed in this brilliantly directed film. If you're looking for more mystery cases, this probably won't intrigue you for that long. There are more emotions at play, and with emotions, there comes mistakes.
What I appreciated was that the original cast stayed the same, since not a lot of Chinese sequels do that anymore. However, the acting was not what I expected. Wu Qing, a name to indicate without emotion, was full of emotions this time and it made me cringe to see Liu Yi Fei act during the middle of it. However, twist at the end, made me appreciate her as an actress and love her as a whole for this sequel. The big bad wolf, Leng Xue, facing losses, was blinded temporarily by his emotions and was rash in making conclusions. However, Deng Chao's superb acting as he tried to face the difficulties ahead of him was touching. Collin Chou and Ronald Cheng are part of the main cast but seem to be supporting roles wherever they go. Not a lot of lines and not a lot of screen time but absolutely wonderful when they do show up.
I'm almost certain part 3 of the trilogy would be as brilliant as the last two. There are so many loose ends at the end of The Four 2, it made me devastated that it ended as it is. Ending the movie with Hu Xia's (Sad Fairytale) voice was an added bonus to the emotions that were swirling within me at the time. There were a lot more CG effects, for sure, but it didn't affect the beauty of the scenery. Wonderful cast, beautiful music, touching story line, just gather some tissues when the movie hits its climax. Beginning slow, slams all kinds of emotions into you and then ending fast, that's how this movie will be.
Definitely a must watch for those who have watched the first part of the movie. It was a spectacular watch and a great way to start off with 2014 movies (despite it being released in 2013, there hasn't been a good quality version uploaded until recently for me).

Read More