Reviews

Watchable

Story - Promising premise (I like the general story and the idea of z-pen and bracelet) but it is unfortunate that they had to cramp multiple genre into one show. I'm not saying it should not be done but it is risky to do so and apparently, they ended up with half-baked everything. The romance/drama, kinda destroyed the momentum midway, honestly. I found myself fast-forwarding starting from midway 'til the end.
Editing - Passable. As an avid viewer of zombies, I can say is barely average. In the introductory scenes for instance, They could have started with the flashback instead of present > flashback > present. It would have had made a great impact if they started with the flashback and transitioned to a hardened FL after experiencing losing her SO to the zombies.
Acting - I'm sorry fans but it's not great. The FL, in particular, is not convincing as a "hardened person" after the circumstances she went through. I can think of multiple instance but case on point: Lackluster reaction upon seeing who she thought was long-dead to be alive and well. Action scene ain't that good as well.

I can't think of so many issues but they can be overlooked (believe me, I overlooked a lot because I miss my zombie shows and I wanted to enjoy this) like how stupid it is for the half-bie male lead to be wearing the same clothes after many years?

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Aichaku is a film that has a lot of heart and comes from a shared experience that all foreigners have felt when living in Japan–at times almost feeling too real.

At the test screening in Nakano, Tokyo, one of the directors Micheal remarked that he felt “happy that viewers can view the unique lived experience of foreigners and LGBT people in Japan.” According to the directors, the film was 95% finished with music licensing being the final touches for the film.

The diversity of the story and themes is somewhat unseen in modern cinema with indie films like Aichaku having to pick up the gauntlet, doing so emotionally and with some great acting by the two leads. McCombs especially channeled the exhaustion that foreigners get when the system collapses on top of them into a powerful scene that, as someone who has been in that position millions of times, felt cathartic to see represented. The relationship between the two leads felt very raw and emotional, even if some of the setups played into Japanese tropes. Though to be fair, the film was set in rural Japan where those less-than-modern tropes still flourish.

Aichaku is a heartfelt indie film that has something for everyone, even those outside the LGBT community.

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..GOOD ADAPTATION..

..i just watch some episode of this anime version - i guess this is original story and concept..
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..the main casts show the characters in the anime version (but i am expecting a lot on Kaori's side by i think it's her first time as his [Ryo] partner, so i understand it - the character development i looked too)..
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..a pinch of drama, a punch of action, and jam-packed comedy - no minutes wasted so worth it too watch..
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..i do love the casting too and it's great lineup for me since i am all familar too them..
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..again, this adaptation is so wonderful to me. . .expecting to have new story on this..
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..more bang bang, more mokkori, more babes..

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Folklore occult horror that shouldn't be missed

Exhuma is an enthralling, unique exploration of intergenerational curses, national history, and spectral hauntings. Kim Go-eun easily carries the dramatic load and Choi Min-sik gives his role a grizzled, weary authority. The journey moves viewers from the ghostly to the monstrous with meaning and history behind the horror, and while there are thought-provoking elements at play here there’s also a desire to deliver big, creepy, gory, beautiful thrills. The inclusion of rituals and ceremonies with historical influences craft a tangible world the story exists in, not necessarily adding undeniable plausibility, but certainly introducing disturbing situations steeped in beliefs and tradition.

My Rating : 8/10

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"The world has changed." "But people don't change"

Jeon Woo Chi: The Taoist Wizard was an uneven but entertaining movie about a mischievous Taoist sorcerer who battled monsters in 16th century Korea and 500 years later. A magical flute that can control the monsters was at the center of a battle between good and evil as Woo Chi and his trusty sidekick Cho Rang Yi attempted to put the monsters back in their gourds.

Woo Chi enjoys bringing attention to himself even when he’s doing it for a good cause and also likes tweaking the noses of the rich and powerful. Armed with magical talismans he performs amazing tricks all of which are frowned upon by his master and sidekick. Rang Yi appears human but in actuality is a dog who can also take the form of a horse. One night Woo Chi crosses paths with another Taoist master, Hwa Dam, and three bumbling shinsuns. These shinsuns are the immortals who accidentally released monsters imprisoned in a heavenly realm by losing track of time while Pyohundaeduck played his magical flute keeping them under control. When the monsters escaped, the flute was contaminated with evil spirits. Both it and Pyohundaeduck fell to earth. The flautist lost his memory and disappeared. Hwa Dam and the shinsuns are searching for the flute. Woo Chi in on the hunt for a bronze sword that will help him become more powerful. After Woo Chi’s master is murdered Hwa Dam and the shinsuns blame Woo Chi and lock him into a painting along with Rang Yi and half of the broken flute. 500 years later the shinsuns release Woo Chi when Hwa Dam is unavailable to fight two dangerous escaped monsters.

Kang Don Won was entertaining as the cocky sorcerer, without his charisma this film would have fallen flat. Yoo Hae Jin is a pleasure to watch and always brings his all to every role even when playing animals. Kim Yoon Seok gave a delightful menace to Hwa Dam. And three competent character actors took on the Three Stooges of heavenly beings. Despite being the FL, Lim Soo Jung wasn’t given much to do until the end.

There was plenty of action both magical and down and dirty fighting between Woo Chi and the monstrous rat and rabbit and their human forms. Wire work abounded and Woo Chi sustained hits even a sorcerer shouldn’t have gotten up from. The CGI was rudimentary more often than not, even for 2009. I didn’t have a big problem with the mediocre CGI but I did have a problem with the editing and lapses in narrative. Some of the story was needlessly confusing and contrived. The actors and action managed to smooth over the ragged seams most of the time.

Though a romance was awkwardly inserted, it didn’t work well for me. This was more a story of a sorcerer and his dog. While Jeon Woo Chi was a lighthearted magical romp, its failure to tie several narrative elements together kept it from casting a spell over me.

3 May 2024
(7.25)

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Ahistorical and convoluted

Combine "samurai warriors" with "basilisk kouga ninpou chou" and you will get this cursed, ahistorical abomination of the movie which only saving grace are obviously high production values, direction and acting.

All wasted on trash "story" portraying historical characters as exaggerated caricatures straight out of samurai warriros so if you played that you know what to expect (mitsunari obsessed with justice, sakon being a cynical war veteran with scars on his face, etc. ), ninja with superhuman abilities who seem like they came from a shounen manga, and all kinda events that simply speaking never happened....starting with the beginning scene where hideyoshi met mitsunari as a child in a temple, which is just an apocryphal rumor, and in reality he first met mitsunari when he was already 18. Or the scene where Kiyomasa Kato wanted to kill Mitsunari, but the latter found refuge in Ieyasu's mansion, portrayed many times as a stage in samurai warriors and completely untrue to history as Ieyasu didn't have any mansion there and likely no assassination attempt even happened there.

This movie is shilling Mitsunari side, and they overdid it hard. I dislike how they portrayed Tokugawa Ieyasu as a complete villain, while writing Mitsunari as a saint. Even his mistakes were because of his good nature.

For example, in the movie he wasn't caught by peasants while trying to run away from the battle. Noo, he was cared for by them and then refused to leave even when the villagers advised him to when Tokugawa troops approached, because he feared the villagers will be executed for helping him and he would rather die then fail to repay his debt to the villagers. Of course, there is zero historical evidence for that, it's just one of many examples of the author wanting to paint Mitsunari as a kind hearted idiot rather than a cowardly villain.

There were also sus moments of technical nature: teppo firing twice in one scene, flat wooden shield stopping a teppo shot, blind yoshitsugu fighting with a spear, crossbows in sekigahara, ashigaru training with swords and shields, and sus amounts of swords on battlefield that should be dominated by spears.

That being said, could be worse: armors weren't paper here, and they actually had to aim for openings in armors to kill their enemies. Overall, individual fight scenes were well done. The group fight scenes weren't so bad either: soldiers actually fought in formations, although chaotically. The blood looked good, and the weapons and armors looked real.

The music is fine but nothing special. The entire romance between Mitsunari and fictional ninja girl was pretty much non existent, so the genre romance is misapplied to this movie.

As many other people said, to understand what is going on here you need to know of the events portrayed in the movie, as well as who is who, as the movie itself haphazardly jumps from one scene to another without explaining what is happening and why. And as I said before, because of various historical inaccuracies and "alternate" interpretations on these historical events, I wouldn't recommend this movie to people who want to learn japanese history.

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Slightly off-tempo romance, beautiful cinematography

There's a lot of promising material in this film, but the heart of the story is a little off-target. The director has a real flair for depicting a city and its atmosphere, in a few aesthetically pleasing but not superficial shots, as well as the emotional weight these cities hold for the characters. It's with the latter that the problem arises: they're well acted (with subtle facial expressions in their interactions) and potentially plausible, but some of the dialogues should never have gone beyond the rough draft stage. As a result, the discussions between characters are sometimes very clumsy, without really having a naturalistic aspect, where key words are repeated over and over again without really moving forward. This aspect clashes all the more with the rather fast pace of this fairly short film, awkwardly slowing down what was hitherto moving at high speed.

When we get away from this heavy-handedness, the characters take on much more meaning, as in the shorter exchanges via webcam, or when the two male leads meet for the first time and exchange introductions in each other's language. The final scene is equally beautiful, full of restrained tension.

The soundtrack is also well done. I can't wait to see her next film; despite the clumsiness of this first attempt, there's a lot to like here.

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Il y a beaucoup de matériau prometteur dans ce film, mais le cœur de l'ouvrage vise un peu à côté de la cible. La réalisatrice a une vraie belle patte pour ce qui est de dépeindre une ville et son atmosphère, en quelques plans esthétisants sans être superficiels, ainsi que le poids émotionnel que ces villes entretiennent avec les personnages. C'est avec ces derniers que le bât blesse un chouïa, ceux-ci sont bien interprétés (avec une mimique subtile dans leurs interactions) et potentiellement plausibles, mais certains des dialogues n'auraient jamais dû dépasser le stade de brouillon. Cela donne des discussions entre personnages parfois très pataudes sans vraiment avoir un aspect naturaliste où l'on répète à l'envie des mots clefs sans vraiment avancer. Cet aspect s'entrechoque d'autant plus avec le rythme plutôt rapide de ce film assez court en ralentissant assez maladroitement ce qui défilait jusque là à grande vitesse.

Quand on s'échappe de ces lourdeurs, les personnages prennent bien plus de sens, comme lors des échanges plus courts via webcam, ou bien quand les deux rôles masculins se rencontrent pour la première fois et échangent des présentations dans la langue de l'autre. La scène finale est également belle, toute en tension retenue.
La bande-son est de bonne facture également. J'ai hâte de voir son prochain film, malgré les maladresses de cette première tentative, il y a beaucoup de choses à aimer ici.

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"The soil of Burma is red. So are the rocks."

The Burmese Harp was a WWII film based on a children’s book by Takeyama Michio from 1946. The book was written to help young readers come to terms with Japan’s defeat while demonstrating Buddhism’s emphasis on altruism. Music featured prominently with both the Japanese and British soldiers singing as well as the playing of the titular instrument. This was the kindest, gentlest war film I’ve ever seen as the Japanese soldiers came to grips with their country’s loss and hoping to see home again.

A small group of Japanese soldiers are making their way through Burma (Myanmar) to Thailand when they are captured by the British. They learn the war has been over for three days. Capt. Inouye is unsure of what lies ahead of them but says they will face it like men and they will face it together. The Allies ask for a soldier to try and talk a group of holdouts on Triangle Mountain into surrendering. Inouye sends the harp playing Mizushima Yasuhiko and tells him to catch up with them at the Mudon POW camp 200 miles/322 km from where he will be after the mission. Unlike Inouye and his group of singing soldiers, the fanatical soldiers on the mountain don’t care that the war is over. They want to die for their Emperor and call Mizushima a coward. The Brits hit the hideout hard and Mizushima is the only one to survive. A traveling monk rescues him and nurses him back to health. While the monk is bathing in the river, Mizushima steals his clothes and later shaves his head so that he can make the arduous trip back to his men. Along the way he repeatedly comes across the decaying bodies of Japanese soldiers left where they lay. He buries a handful before continuing his journey. When he reaches the Buddhist monastery at Mudon he teaches a young boy a few new chords on the harp (Saung). The next morning he hears singing and finds the Allied hospital staff at the camp singing and praying over a Japanese soldier they have buried. Something inside of him fundamentally alters at this sight and instead of joining his men he turns back to bury the dead. Meanwhile, his men grow ever more concerned at his absence.

This film fell more into fable or fairytale than realistic war drama. Director Ichikawa showed the ravages of war and starvation in his excellent film Fires on the Plain (1959). While the book supposedly touched on Japan’s responsibility for the war and was critical of Japan’s militaristic actions and mindset, this movie veered away from those criticisms. Since the core concept of the film was for children--comfort women, the Nanjing Massacre, and dire reality for Allied prisoners in Japanese POW camps where 40% died was left out. This was a film about healing, friendship, and spiritual transformation in the face of defeat while not shying away from the staggering loss of life from war.

Music played an almost magical role for the soldiers in healing and binding the men together. It also brought out the shared humanity between the Japanese and Allied personnel. “Home, Sweet, Home” was sung by both groups and at one time all together. As Mizushima observed the scattered bodies with birds feeding on them, “O, Sacred Head Now Wounded” played in the background. In typical 1950’s fashion, the men sounded like a professional chamber choir when they sang and Mizushima’s battered saung provided the clear, dulcet tones of an orchestra’s multi-octave harp.

The soldiers longed for home and longed for peace. As they dreamed of returning to their lives in Japan they had no idea of the drastic changes ahead or that many places would be unrecognizable. Mizushima had been reborn while assisting the dead to rest in peace. He had to decide whether to stay in Burma and mend the past or go home and help rebuild his country. While this film may have shown a more idyllic version of humanity it couldn’t hide the horror and monstrous cost of war and didn’t try. This type of meditative, comforting film in the face of upheaval and how humans choose to react and grow was right up my alley. I thoroughly enjoyed The Burmese Harp. “…our work is simply to ease the great suffering of the world…to find the strength to create peace by one’s own example.”

2 May 2024

Home, Sweet, Home (For those too young to be familiar with it)

“Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there
Which seek thro' the world, is ne'er met elsewhere
Home! Home!
Sweet, sweet home!
There's no place like home
There's no place like home!

An exile from home splendor dazzles in vain
Oh give me my lowly thatched cottage again
The birds singing gaily that came at my call
And gave me the peace of mind dearer than all
Home, home, sweet, sweet home
There's no place like home, there's no place like home!”

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