I'm going to echo my friend Jay Jay's review. On the spot. Movie is bad... badly written and badly acted by about everyone. Very juvenile script and dialogue. There isn't a one of us who has watched Romance dramas who couldn't have written this just as well if not a whole lot better.
However, it is beautiful to look at cinematically. The visuals were stunning and whomever the cinematographer was, they did a terrific job. Loved the scenes of Shanghai and the neighborhood this was filmed in was so picturesque I wanted to move there! It appears to be dubbed, to it's detriment...also adding in sounds like footsteps, breathing, gasps, grunts, etc.that are too loud and very distracting. The entire soundtrack for the movie was just uncomfortable to listen to.
PSH is gorgeous and so healthy looking in this, thankfully, and speaks a lot of English and quite well! Surprising. His time spent here in the US was well used I think. He was the best in this by far as far as the acting, but with a script as simple as this there was very little 'acting' needed by anyone. Which was good since the rest of the cast were pretty awful. They all appear to be very new or very inexperienced. The best of them being the young man who served as an interpreter. Still I was just so happy to see Park Si Hoo looking so good and doing so well. It was worth watching for the relief from worry. 6/10 for the terrible script, acting, and directing. 8/10 for the joy of seeing PSH get his feet wet and putting forth the effort it must have cost him to move on with his acting life. He did a good job with some pretty bad material. I understand the movie did very well in China where he is immensely popular.
I hope his next project, with a leading lady who has more strength, will be better for him, but I really wish he would find another project similar to Confessions. It would be good to see him take on darker parts, more action oriented to fit in with his martial arts and sporting background.
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