Reviews

So many emotions in a short film.

This 37-minute film accomplishes what many, much longer series cannot —it gives a succinct story with MANY emotions and different facets of the plot, all in such a short time. The chemistry between the two main leads is undeniable. Despite being labeled as "best-friends," they seem to share a much deeper, world-changing bond. I particularly like how the film deals with grief, guilt, and deception in both of the main leads. The supporting cast, while small, also provides small details to the story, which help flesh out the characters.

All in all, I've rewatched this film probably about once every six months since it came out, and I find I like it every time. Take this with a grain of salt. I'm a sucker for pretty men.

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"Life is money"

Dying to Survive seemed like a film written for me. Small time heroes clandestinely go up against a large pharmaceutical company bleeding terminal patients dry and by extension, the government. Goodness knows I’m nearly always up for a story socking it to the greedy companies who only care about the people who can pay for their products. But somehow, I never quite connected to the characters in this film, try as I might.

People suffering from Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML) are suffering and dying because the treatment is cost prohibitive. The international pharmaceutical company jealously guards its medications and profit margins. When a patient, Lu Shou Yi, approaches a small-time erotic supplement shop owner about smuggling a generic version of the cancer drug pirated in India, his and other patients’ fortunes change…for a while. Cheng Yong’s dad is ill and needs a surgery, but Cheng is broke. He takes Lu up on his offer and begins smuggling the drug in. The problems begin to mount along with his profits. The police and a counterfeit drug con artist both are on his tail.

I think part of the problem I had with this film was that Cheng Yong wasn’t very likeable. His recently ex-wife was not unaccustomed to being hit by him. He was brash and often self-centered. That he worried about getting caught by the police didn’t bother me. I can’t imagine anyone not being deterred by the thought of spending up to a lifetime in jail, something his customers didn’t have to worry about. Their concern was dying without the life-giving medication. When Cheng had his 180-degree personal transformation, it was dizzying. I could have also used more character development for the leukemia patients I was supposed to care about.

Xu Zheng gave a solid performance as the morally conflicted Cheng Yong. I might have had problems with how he went from a selfish capitalist to completely selfless savior, but Cheng sold it as best he could. If you are a Zhou Yi Wei fan, you might be disappointed as he doesn’t have much screen time as the detective in charge of hunting down the source of the “counterfeit” drugs. Cao Bin had no problem going after the actual drug scammers but began to feel his conscience prick him when he discovered the drugs Cheng’s customers were using were legit, just not on the national drug list. And at a fraction of the cost. Even people not suffering from poverty can be financially devastated when having to pay exorbitant prices for medications.

Large corporations and insurance companies should not have the power of life and death, so I was pleased that Cheng Yong and his crew bucked the system instigating changes to the health care system in China. I couldn’t read the explanatory credits at the end of the film, but I’m sure it said that policies were enacted to make cancer drugs much more affordable and available or I doubt this film would have been made. But I will always celebrate any win that bloodies the nose of those who prey upon the sick and the weak.

30 January 2026

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The girl in the red dress

Something about the Li Min lingers with me. Maybe it's the way I can find next to nothing of her online. Vanishing, quite like her character (Song) in the film, with only her son as proof of her existence. Just like this film being one of the only records of Li Min's existence.

As for Zebrowski, he went on with his life and continued being famous. Resembling what I imagine happened in the film; Wolski melancholically thinking of Song occasionally, but ultimately moving on with his life and marrying his fiancé.

As for third-wheel me, I'm stuck with a new "Roman Empire" of a girl showing off her red dress to the whole village thinking she was getting married.

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Perfect Days feels like a visual answer to the question of why Japan is so deeply loved. There is something profoundly healing, almost spiritual, about Hirayama’s life. The quiet tranquillity, the peace found in monotony, and the gentle rhythm of his days feel like a reminder of how life could be lived. Watching this movie felt like escaping to Tokyo, not to chase excitement, but to rediscover beauty in everyday life. It’s hard to put into words just how deeply healing this film felt.

Plot*
Hirayama is a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo. His life follows a strict, repetitive routine: waking up, getting ready, watering his plants, buying the same coffee, going to work, and ending his day at the same bathhouses, bars, and small restaurants. On the surface, his life is monotonous. Yet against the backdrop of buzzing Tokyo's skyscrapers, traffic, and fast-paced modernity. Hirayama’s existence feels almost revolutionary. Like he’s the only one who has figured something out, the rest of us are rushing past.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully explain how this movie made me feel. There’s something almost ironic about the fact that this film began as a documentary project meant to showcase the architectural beauty of Tokyo’s public toilets, and somehow evolved into one of the most powerful and quietly moving movie of the last decade. So much of the movie feels nostalgic, even without relying on overt sentimentality.

*Hirayama*
Hirayama’s routine repeats itself almost identically every single day. The same movements, the same places, the same rhythm. Yet instead of feeling boring, it becomes comforting. Healing. He is a taciturn man who speaks very little; in fact, nearly 90% of the film unfolds without dialogue. And maybe that’s exactly what makes the film so poetic. It doesn’t impose meaning on the viewer. Instead, it trusts you to feel it on your own,
One of the most striking moments in the film is Hirayama’s lunch break at a temple. Like clockwork, he sits surrounded by nature, watching the leaves sway gently as sunlight filters through the trees. This phenomenon—komorebi— " sunlight leaking through trees"- refers to the beauty and wonder of rays of light dappled through overhead leaves. It represents a poetic, aesthetic concept of nature’s beauty and tranquillity, often signifying moments of peace, mindfulness, and the fleeting nature of light, something that exists only once, in that exact moment. Hirayama takes photos of Komorebi, sitting under the same trees every day, yet no picture is ever the same. It feels like a quiet reminder that even within repetition, moments are fleeting and unrepeatable.
Nature plays a crucial role in the film, constantly contrasted with the surrounding modern cityscape. Towering buildings, rushing commuters, and traffic noise set against the calm of sunlight, leaves, and wind. Hirayama is often the only one who pauses to notice these details. He sees beauty where others rush past. Even in traffic, his stillness feels like being untouched by the chaos around him.
The film introduces a subtle change when Hirayama’s runaway niece comes to stay with him. Her presence disrupts his routine and gently challenges his way of living. It’s during this time that we begin to learn more about him, and it’s also one of the few moments when he speaks. What initially seems like the life of a sad old man cleaning toilets slowly reveals itself as a conscious choice, a life he stepped into, not out of failure, but out of a desire for peace and contentment. By the end, his life evokes not pity, but quiet envy.

*Tokyo’s public toilets*
The Tokyo public toilets themselves become works of art. Each one is architecturally unique, some blending seamlessly into nature, others showcasing modern technology, transparency, maze-like structures, or even playful mushroom-shaped designs. It’s architectural innovation at its finest. Choosing toilets instead of skyscrapers to represent Tokyo feels strange at first, but the more I watched, the more poetic it became. It’s precisely this unorthodox choice that gives the film its uniqueness, turning something ordinary into something contemplative.

*Cinematography*
The cinematography carries the same nostalgic weight. The camera moves deliberately, often lingering on Hirayama’s expressions—those of a man who seems content, peaceful, and deeply present. There’s a softness to the way he is filmed, as if the movie itself is breathing at his pace.

There are still so many things to say, and yet not enough words. One final detail that lingers is the music—old American classics playing against a Japanese backdrop. The contrast feels unexpected, but it is an essential part of Japanese history and memory, adding another layer to the film’s gentle nostalgia.
Perfect Days didn’t try to impress me. It didn’t rush me. It didn’t explain itself.
It simply existed and invited me to slow down and exist with it.
And somehow, that was enough.

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A decent horror that relies on jumpscares

I'm trying to dip my toes into the genre of "serious horror", aka, movies that will definitely give me nightmares, ensuring my sleep cycle is ruined. And Netflix has been on me about watching Death Whisperer and I said why not. I want to watch more horror movies despite the fact that they are evidently not great for me.

To the horror end - Death Whisperer is a very good movie. Tons of jumpscares, extremely scary looking ghosts and ghost adjacents, an incredible cast who've done a great job at pretending to being scared and actually scaring me. Plus, tons of gore (which I was not prepared for so that was a nice surprise!). It's a classic horror formula I've seen lots of times.

The story - is okay. I expected a bit more. I wanted a good setup and some decent explanations but going scare heavy, the plot was all over the place, and we got no real conclusion (rectified, hopefully, by the fact that there are three more movies in the series). I know it's based on a novel based on real events, but I can't but feel a little let down. This is an occult based story and I don't usually expect them to have a detailed backstory, but some would've been nice? We got, "it's been happening for centuries, now it's happening to you".

The characterization - that was the worst part. Again, I know it's a real event, but this is a fictional version, no matter how true to the original event it is, and I think they could have done a bit better there. Characters do things that are completely out of.. well character. And the explanation is that the evil spirit made them do it. There are more than 10 main characters here, which ensures that you can't really develop them as characters, which is okay. But I refuse to believe that in what should have been moments of desperation, these people were so cavalier about stuff?

Overall, this is a decent horror movie. I'm hoping to get more out of the sequels because the story here left much to desire - but I would recommend it if you're in the mood for something pretty scary.

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Garbage!!!

The writer was probably high when he wrote this garbage. People kept saying it was really good and super relatable about social media and stuff, so I thought I’d give it a try. It was an absolute waste of my time. First of all, nothing about the streaming app made any sense. When everyone was busy looking for the girl, were the country’s police just sitting around with their hands up, or watching with popcorn? Nothing really made sense, and it felt like the writer just thought, ‘Let me write some random nonsense.’ And nowadays the MDL comment section is garbage too — as if they got paid to say it’s such a great movie.

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“We refuse to leave, because we don't give up. Even if some try to erase us.”

I'm so happy to finally be able to see this movie after waiting for it since it was announced!! It's the second film submitted by Thailand to be nominated at Oscar's Best International film that I've seen, and I'm baffled that they didn't make it all the way (the first one being "How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies"). Thailand, to me, is a cinematic goldmine that is yet to be discovered by the world. Having a director whose debut film is THIS can only be a sign of a national cinema that is expanding exponentially.

With images, music, acting, and production that strongly recall Yorgos Lanthimos's incredible Poor Things (2023), A Useful Ghost is a plea, a social protest that manifests in a strange world where ghosts are part of everyday life and the Thai spoken by its protagonists sounds monotonous. It depicts a world in crisis, but one that explodes in shapes and colors.

Davikah's character, whose performance shines as expected, is the "living" image of a group of people who have not been brought to justice, but are rejected, marginalized, and discriminated against. We are shown a story where ghosts have no rights and are seen as objects that move, speak, and, as a form of protest, torment the living.

I must say that what I expected from this film was an explicit critique of one of the most direct consequences of capitalism: environmental pollution. It shows how ever-increasing industrial production and urbanization continue to rapidly gain ground, crushing culture, art, and human lives, especially the most vulnerable ones. And in a way, it is that, but this film also turned out to be a call to memory; this fiction, where ghosts appear and linger as long as someone remembers them, speaks directly to the viewer (through the eyes of the nameless ladyboy protagonist) to reveal the horrors of oblivion. Memory, a historical debt owed by the government to their people, is a right for families who lose their loved ones at the hands of negligence.

A Useful Ghost, as its name suggests, unveils the underlying objectification and exploitation of communities at the base of a still-present social pyramid (workers, women, queer people, people of color), who fall into oblivion until they become useful to those at the top. It represents, in its rawest essence, the contradiction experienced by those below the powerful, in order to exercise their right to exist.

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Pretty Crazy is a fun, comedic take on demon possession. For me, it’s one of those movies you just enjoy watching nothing too heavy, but still with a nice emotional sprinkle. The casting is good, and while the plot isn’t complicated, that actually works in its favor. This is the kind of movie I’d watch on a chill day when I don’t want to commit too much energy.

*Plot *
The story follows Jung Seon-ji, a shy and polite young woman who carries a family curse. Every night at exactly 2 a.m., a demon takes over her body for a few hours. She switches from quiet and reserved to loud, colorful, and angry. Her father has been managing this curse for years, acting as the demon’s bodyguard going out with it and making sure to fulfill whatever the demon demands.
Things change when her father injures himself and can’t continue anymore. He asks their neighbor who accidentally finds out about the family secret to take over as the demon’s chaperone. That’s when things start to shift, especially after the neighbor decides he wants to do more than just supervise the demon and actually tries to help Seon-ji by finding a way to remove it from her body.


Overall, I found Pretty Crazy to be a really nice, easy watch. It’s not meant to be deep or complex, but it’s charming, funny, and surprisingly warm, perfect for when you want something enjoyable without any heavy emotional commitment.

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In the confessional

What you say in the confessional stays there because we believe that God forgives and erases sin. I liked that the makers of this movie used the confessional to deepen the story, showing how much remains hidden and how, ultimately, only God knows everything and can therefore be the final judge. The premise of a priest carrying an unresolved burden was very interesting, but I think the story could have done more to reveal the motives of the other characters. They did quite well in using Catholic elements and setting them against beliefs in the occult.

I appreciate the movie’s attempt to create an unsettling atmosphere through both sound and visuals, and it succeeds most of the time, but it does not reach the level of Exhuma, even though they share the same genre. The acting is decent, but it is not the movie’s strongest asset. Still, I took away many interesting ideas from the film, and I can recommend it for its reflection on mercy, justice, and the limits of human knowledge.

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"I once crossed the desert in tears and despair. I am now about to cross it with love."

*a sad, sweet and simple story*

QUOTES:
"I will always be with you."
"Love is said to be, always something that we don't know its depth, until the time for farewell comes."
"I wanted to make our love, the best love in the world."
"It's not farewell, until we have each other in our hearts."

"everybody has a desert of their own to cross. I met a small oasis, on my way to cross the desert. abundant blue water. across the oasis which is full of abundance. I know the way to cross that desert now.
I once crossed the desert in tears and despair. I am now about to cross it with love."

like I wrote in the headline, it is a simple story about a married couple's happy life being disrupted when the husband finds out he has a brain tumor and then how he slowly passes away. before He died he wrote letters to comfort his wife. He encouraged her to keep on living and pursuing her dreams.

it is a bittersweet movie, but it's worth watching, plus there is the 90s charm of it, reminding us of simpler times. the couple live a quiet life in the countryside, which I admired.

I'd recommend watching it for yourself, on a rainy day.

oh and it does have a hopeful ending :)

as for music, the song "stand by me" played at parts and it fit well. and there is a nice violin and piano soundtrack.

(and the make-up department did a good job making park shin yang look sickly)

in a nutshell, what I really like is how she decided to live instead of giving up after he passed away. She loves him and always will, but he would have wanted her to be happy.

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It never rains on this mountain

Favouring quiet contemplation over combat, Raining in the Mountain unfolds like a moving scroll of exquisite paintings with mist drifting through mountain paths, rain tapping on tiled roofs, and robes gliding down corridors. From the opening moments, Hu signals that this will not be a tale driven by conquest or glory, but by impermanence, restraint and moral testing; its plot functioning less as a narrative engine than as philosophical scaffolding, the play-by-play almost akin to that of a heist film. It is a film of movement; action is deliberately muted, even anti-climactic. Fights dissolve into evasions; pursuits end in stillness. What matters is not who wins, but who renounces. In this sense, the film feels closer to a Zen parable than a traditional wuxia film, using genre expectations only to strip them away. Visually, the film is spectacular; Hu's command of space is incredible, with doorways framing moral choices, corridors becoming channels of fate, and the mountain itself seems to breathe alongside the characters. His editing creates a meditative tempo. Every gesture, glance, and footstep carries weight, as if the film itself were practising mindfulness. It may never rain on this mountain, but ultimately, for all its sedate visual beauty, Raining in the Mountain finds its deepest drama not in violence, but in the choice to let go.

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Melancholic. Beautiful. Bittersweet

I know It is a sad movie and yet I found it is one beautiful movie. Melancholy that we experience with loss of the true love, makes us know the depth of that love. That melancholy hits you like the saddest note of the violin. It leaves you feeling empty long after, because you know such love and such youth will never come back. What remains is the memories. Moments they die, yet in the memories they remain alive.
What also was touching was how male lead avoided going to her home because he could not come to terms with her death. He wanted to experience her life and not come face to face with her death because in his memory she was more alive than anyone he met. Love is not about possessing but about knowing and experiencing even if without the one whom you truly love. Thank you for such warmth that was lighted by this movie even though it makes you traverse through tunnel of darkness and into the cold snowy place.

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