RinouMokao
Paris
The story is very surprising and you could say that a weird film, but honestly it worth it. The relation between the characters is really interesting and you can really feel that all of them have their story and have a life before the movie even started.
Also I liked thet fact that roles are kinda reversed: we often get to see foreigners being lost in Japan, trying to speak Japanese when no Japanese understand what they say etc, but here the situation is the contrary, the Japanese characters are lost in the US.
All the actors are really talented, I read that most of them could relate at a personnal level to the characters' stories so it makes the whole movie way more realistic, and the problematic that are shown (suicide, dispute between families, financial problems, ...) are really touching.
I won't say that it was the best film I've never seen, or that I'll absolutly wtach it again (I've put a rewatch value rate cause I had to, but I haven't rewatch it), but it was really interesting and I'm really curious to see Hirayanagi Atsuko's next films.
Also the French poster was very beautiful, that what attracted me at first ha ha
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First of all, I've only watched one other of Park Chan Wook's films, Old boy, but it's worth watching cause it's also a really great film.
The movie is really well written, it's divided in three parts that are following one character each, and each of those part is really well written and mind blowing. The whole film is mind blowing actually, form plot twist to plot twist, the suspense is here.
The pictures are very beautiful also, it's what I call great cinema: even before I had the chance to see it, I knew I would like it cause the pictures and the music that are shown in the trailer really set what you are going to see, which is georgeous images of the Korean countryside or the city, and the music that is just perfect. Also the actors are really talented and they were all really good in their role.
But there's two things I actually really really liked about this film:
- The whole story about Japanese occupation. I didn't have the chance to see much about that precise period, and the fact that Korean are able to talk about that difficult situation is very important I think (on that subject, I advise you the Korean drama Bridal Mask, it's really good). Listening to those two beautiful languages is also a plus for me. I liked that the historical part is here, but not in a central place, cause the story between the characters is way more important, and that's really weel done.
- Strong lesbian characters. As queer female myself, I'm thrilled to see such strong characters. Finding good gay male character is quite difficult in Asian cinema, even though it's getting easier each year fortunatly, but lesbian characters are always absent (especially in Korean films and dramas), just search "gay" and "lesbian" tags on the site and compare by yourself. So these girls are really important to me, and as well as the historical side, it's here, but it's not like "queer propagandia", theur queerness is just natural.
Some scene can be, not difficult to watch, but quite "disgusting" (I don't really know what word I should use), but they don't feel useless, I feel like everything is here for a reason. The film is relativly long (144 min) but, I promise you won't be bored.
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So I think the first thing to say is that this is a low budget production, so don't expect those neat Thai BL lakorn, but for such a low budget the overall production was rather acceptable: as it has already been mentioned, the music is so so but the rest is very enjoyable. I do think that the low budget production is on the contrary what makes us feel closer to the characters.
The main advantages of that film are the touching characters, the great actors and the important issues that are treated (mostly homophobia in China and AIDS). The story may lacks clarity sometimes, but honestly it won't be too difficult to follow.
The images are also sometimes really pretty, with beautiful lights, and one more thing to convince you: it's not too long (~45 min) and you can ealisy find it with eng subs on YouTube.
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