General Chi sends his son to find the Master of the Three Arts. The master has a book detailing the ninja’s skills. Years ago, he taught three different men three different skills. They’ve never met, but have a way of knowing who the other is. Eventually, Han Yu returns with the fighters and they immediately start ferreting out the ninja spies.
I had higher hopes for this film given the cast. Poor Ti Lung spent most of his time ostentatiously dressed and looking constipated. Kurata Yasuaki didn’t fight until the last five minutes of the film, which was the greatest crime. Phillip Kwok aka Lizard Venom, Lu Feng aka Centipede Venom, and Chiang Sheng aka Venom Intern, put on a good show as all three were quite athletic and acrobatic. The trio took part in directing the film and choreographing the fights. Though a few of the fights strayed into kung fu posing, most were quick and entertaining for the time.
This film was not a Shaw Brothers production where the Venoms had spent most of their time. The Venoms went on the road to Taiwan and it showed. Several of the fights were shot at night which meant that it was difficult to discern the action. Others were carried out in the forests per usual, though at least this time it helped for the ninjas to have trees to jump out of.
The film’s quality was badly degraded. At one point it looked like Mystery Science Theater with dark chunks missing at the bottom of the screen resembling the bots watching a movie. The film choices I found were either subbed with faded white subs on a faded badly cropped background or a dubbed version with Chinese subtitles with more of a letterbox screen. The sound and film quality were poor for both. Basically, pick your poison.
When Ninja in the Deadly Trap focused on the Venoms it was more interesting. I’m still salty that Kurata had such a small part as he could bring the menace to accompany his real word martial arts skills. For fans of the genre, it could be a frustrating watch but worthwhile if you are a fan of any of the players. As always, graded on a curve.
3 May 2025
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"Don't ask for more"
Cute Girl aka Lovable You was Hou Hsiao Hsien’s directorial debut. Fans of his may be able to spot his tells, but this seemed worlds away from “A Time to Live, A Time to Die” or “Daughter of the Nile”. This was a plain vanilla romcom if you removed all the vanilla.Pan Wen Qi’s wealthy father is arranging a marriage for her to the son of another wealthy family. Wen decides to take a break and spend time with her aunt in the countryside. As luck would have it, Gu Da Gang is surveying the town for a highway that is going to be built. “Hilarious” interactions between the villagers and Da Gang draw the two together. But sadly, this love could never be, because Wen’s father would never approve of a poor engineer. Wen returns home without saying good-bye to the man she has happily spent the past few days with. That doesn’t stop Da Gang from stalking her, I mean searching for her to declare himself.
Romcoms often rely on cheesy situations and misunderstandings, how the tropes are implemented is what matters. Cute Girl was built on cute people who did supposedly cute things. The characters had no depth and Wen’s most emotional outburst was when Da Gang and her blind date became friends. The cringe factor was high in this film, which wouldn’t have been so bad if the characters caused me to care whether they got to together or not. The theme song was played at least six times and for the most part this was a music video with a little story to it. It was truly one of the blandest films I’ve ever watched. At ninety minutes, it felt much longer.
3 May 2025
Trigger warning: A cobra was shown being butchered
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A good action movie
If you want to watch a good, fun action movie then you'll like this. The action is really good. The fight scenes are gritty and bloody. The choreography and everything is really well done. Andy On is a badass and can do great action scenes. Jiro Wang is good too. I was a bit surprised at how well he did his action scenes. Andy and Jiro had good on-screen chemistry. Eric Tsang was good as the charismatic and cunning villain. I was a bit confused at first if this is a prequel to the first movie but it seems like it's a completely unrelated story with different characters. One thing I didn't really like is that one of the characters are killed off and another character takes his face and appearance. I felt like that was a bit too sci-fi-ish and not very realistic. They could've done that differently.Was this review helpful to you?
I like the way the story is told, the way the space the landscape itself shapes the tone of a scene, the way music also tells the story of the island's community, of their feelings and state of being. I also loved how they did the flashbacks to Nabbie and Sun Ra in 1940. The dialogue is also something to pay attention to: In some scenes words are never needed; in others, characters say what they mean, but in other words; and in some, words fall like stones into the still sea.
Only one thing, we are used to the somewhat yellowish tint in Japanese films and series -- but I felt that it was even stronger here? It must have been a conscious choice? Or else I am too used to digitally filmed media? Thinking about it, I notice that I haven't seen a colour film from the 20th century in a while.
It's sad that the film didn't capture the vibrant colours of the sea, the sky and the flowers, I think I would have loved to see that.
I'm glad that JFF provided us with additional material, especially the "Ryukyu Buyo" short (link to the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSX8VaAV4RQ), which helped a lot with understanding the music and why some of the scenes were acted the way they were.
The story elements of enduring love, leaving the island and coming back, community and spiritualism are probably much deeper than I as an outsider can ever see. It was lovely, and I cried for reasons I cannot explain myself.
Was it good? -- It was! It's deliberately slow, but well told, and I love the way they did the flashbacks to the old love story of Nabbie and Sun Ra.
Did I like it? -- I did. However, this is a film I have to be in the right mood for if I want to enjoy it.
Would I recommend it? -- To those who love to see something different, who don't mind a story that sometimes tells things coming from sideways. However, those who hate the colour palette in Japanese media should probably stay clear.
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Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants
4 people found this review helpful
:(
This is probably the worst movie I've seen this year, so far. I love Xiao Zhan, but omg can someone pls advise that boy to pick better projects? The editing, the dubbing, the story, the special effects, all of it was torture. The 2 1/2 stars are due to Xiao Zhan, who btw looks gorgeous with that tan. I want more of him, but also I want better writing.Was this review helpful to you?
Cute!
I thought this was a pretty cute Freaky Friday story where, instead of mother and daughter switching, it's father and daughter. The acting is pretty great and I loved seeing Jung So Min adopt the mannerisms of a middle aged dad. I thought Yoon Je Moon did a great job playing a teenage girl, too. Especially the date and karaoke scenes.There were parts (karaoke and a scene with the psychologist) that felt pretty clearly like doubles were used. I wished for a bit more interaction from the mother and the psychologist because it seemed as if they were meant to be more significant characters, but they weren't in the film much. Also, one of Do Yeon's classmates has a pretty rough home life and nothing's really done with that. Seemed as if she was just there to encourage Do Yeon to appreciate her father more.
Overall, I think the daughter learned more lessons than the father, so it was a bit one sided. However, I still found this to be pretty cute and I laughed out loud a few times. It's a recommend if you're looking for something simple to watch about father and daughter bonding.
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"People can change"
As a fan of 2013’s Neko Zamurai (Samurai Cat), I was curious as to what the ninjas had to offer in the way of feline entertainment. Madarame and his beautiful white kitty had nothing to fear from this movie. If I had rated it as a Saturday morning kids’ television program, it would be around a 7/10.Kagerota’s fearsome ninja father left him in a puff of smoke when the boy was only 10 years old. The child was convinced his father had turned into a ginger colored cat with a red nose just like his dad’s. Fifteen years later, Kagerota comes across what he believes is the same cat, and this time will not be parted from his father. The clan doesn’t allow cats so he leaves which is a ninja no-no. An inept group of ninja hunters led by Blue Eyes stays hot on his tail. At a small guesthouse, Momiji, one of the women who works there, ingratiates herself to Kagerota. What Kagerota may or may not know is that Momiji works for the ninja clans.
Ohno Takuro was easy on the eyes as the ninja on the loose with a ginger tabby under his arm. If you are a feline fan there were two beautiful cats, the aforementioned and a playful calico. Much like a Saturday morning show or an After School Special, there was plenty of cheesy humor and the requisite moral lessons to be learned. Loyalty, friendship, and the right to be who you choose to be messages were all wrapped up in a cuddly, furry package. Also, some fathers are better fathers as a cat.
“Cats pick who they like and live as they like.” True.
2 May 2025
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traumatic
i knew what this movie was about and i heard the comments about it heing traumatizing but i didn't expect to be this traumatizing, after watching it i cried so much and i was just depressed, although i cried so much I'm still so glad this movie was made, you don't ever see SA being represented in south korean dramas/movies so I'm so glad they made this, a lot of people don't take SA seriously and i just think that's so disgusting, SA of children and adults should be taken seriously and the criminals doing the act should be punished harshly. anf sadly the movie is about a real case, and the disgusting criminals were made innocent but the movie helped re open the case which is why i love this movie.Was this review helpful to you?
Young never dies
Life giving story❤️🩹It was heart wrenching movie..liked a lot...must watch..After watching this i came to know "why we should live ".You know,if we have given a chance to live life..live your life without regrets..bcoz there are many people who wish to live few more days but didn't got a second chance.
Do whatever you wish to ,bcoz your happiness is what matters and make it happen before you have to regret.💘
Tell your parents you love them,hold the hands of your dreamed one before you write the end of your story.
Give life a second chance,it will create more beautiful stories for you..
Thank u Xinyang🫂
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Train to Busan with dogs.
They did not even try to make it original. It had the same framework as Train to Busan, that included the copy paste father-daughter relationship, but no heart and execution the former movie had.It's honestly sad this is one of the last projects from Lee Sun Kyun. Maybe if it was my first monster disaster movie, I would enjoy it more. Sadly, in the sea of other similar movies, it does not stand out on any level. The writing is mediocre, which leads to mediocre performances (there is a limit to how much acting can improve poorly written characters). The CGI was decent during some shots, and bad in others. The ending completely lacked any impact - be it in emotional or entertaining value. What's the worst? It completely lacked dynamic. Everything was gray, covered in mist and they did not utilize the place at all.
Anything good? There were a few fun scenes that made me chuckle. That's probably it.
Overall, it's just painfully mediocre and I do not understand how so many well known actors agreed to star in it.
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Creepy
This movie had a definite creep factor to it. Was a decent found footage movie with some well placed jump scares. What I enjoyed the most was the whole setup because they were like one of those fake shows that records hauntings.Although not extremely scary, it was creepy enough to keep me a little on edge and wrapped up nicely. Wasn’t super cliche with things. Didn’t know what was going to happen and when. The jump scares were well placed.
I’d recommend if you are a horror fan. Good horror is hard to come by.
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"If you're not good, we need mutual understanding"
I went into The Great Buddha+ blind thinking it might be about a spiritual journey. Uh, no. This film had numerous lewd jokes and comments and pretty much audio porn. It looked like a low budget art house movie filmed mostly in black and white. The title was not false advertising as there was a big brass Buddha at the center of unsavory events.Belly Button lives hand to mouth, eking out a living by collecting and selling recyclable materials and junk. Too poor to drink, he eats one meal a day consisting of food thrown out in the evenings by convenience stores. He is pretty much at the bottom rung of the social ladder if he’s on the ladder at all. Fortunately for him, he meets with Pickle every day at his friend’s night job guarding a factory that makes among other things Buddha statues. Belly Button orders the passive Pickle around, the only person he can tell what to do. Pickle’s boss, Kevin, isn’t nice but is also the object of their envy with his wealth, Mercedes, women, and powerful friends. When the tv breaks down in the office, a bored Belly Button suggests they watch the dashcam from the boss’ car. Turns out Kevin has a car sex fetish which provides hours of amusement for the down on their luck friends…until they see something they shouldn’t or at least wish they hadn’t.
The film hammered home that Belly Button and Pickle were poor and powerless, out of the reach of justice. When they died, if they were lucky, their chalk line would look like a man and not a circle. No one truly knew the other. Men like Kevin weren’t held accountable for their actions as the courts were run by and for the wealthy. The other oft used image was the dashcam. The only color in the film was through the eyes of the dashcam lens. The witness of even heavily edited dashcam recordings was the reality of the nightly news and life. The director provided narration sporadically through the film, sometimes for the better and sometimes as a spoiler of coming events. My biggest problem with the film was that many scenes dragged on for far too long and side characters who added little were often introduced.
The Great Buddha+ had interesting concepts and even inspired a few laughs. The messages overall were bleak. Pickle and Belly Button had come to the conclusion that the only way their lots in life could change would be for the worse. Fate had not been kind with the families they’d been born into. The titular brass Buddha observed all the dirty and sad goings on with a placid face. Sometimes a flower can bloom on a pile of trash, sometimes the flower just gets stepped on before it can bloom. The Buddha may have been hollow, but did karma get the last laugh?
1 May 2025
Trigger warnings: Partial nudity, sexual content, lewd comments
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This review may contain spoilers
A Thriller That Keeps You Guessing Until the End
I write really long reviews but here's a summary. Keep in mind this is just my opinion and I don't mean to offend anyone ❤️❗SPOILERS AHEAD❗
The Good
Twist After Twist After Twist
This movie knew how to mess with your mind in the best way possible. The plot twists had me questioning everything, just like Jin Seok. When his brother came back acting all strange, I was sure Yoo Seok was the villain. I had my own theory board going, but of course, I was wrong. And that journey to the truth? So worth it.
Edge-of-Your-Seat Suspense
The suspense in this movie was chef’s kiss. From the pencil inches away from Jin Seok’s eye to the creepy room with those weird noises—every scene had me on edge. What made it even more gripping was the feeling that everyone in the movie knew what was going on, except for us. No slow build here—it was intense right from the start.
The Psychological Element
Jin Seok’s mental struggle hit differently because, honestly, it’s not just fiction. When you experience extreme trauma, your brain sometimes blocks it out as a coping mechanism, even creating fake memories. That’s what happened to Jin Seok. His guilt over the family’s accidental deaths was so heavy, it was buried deep in his mind. And when the truth finally came back? Yikes. It’s fascinating in a deeply unsettling way.
A Tragic but Perfect Ending
This might sound grim, but when a character gets what they want and then dies? That hits. It’s tragic, sure, but also poetic. Yoo Seok’s mission was finally complete, and then he ended his life. It felt like a tragic, full-circle conclusion. The whole movie started with tragedy and ended with it—perfectly tied together, in the most haunting way.
No Time Wasted
One of the best things about Forgotten was how it didn’t waste any time. No slow build, no dragging out the plot—this movie got right to the point. I watched it with my dad and stepmom, both of whom hate slow movies, and even they were hooked from the beginning. That’s how you know the pacing was on point.
The Bad
The House Was Just… There?
Why was Jin Seok in that house? I get it’s part of Yoo Seok’s trap, but it didn’t really help Jin Seok recover his memories. He didn’t start remembering until after he left. The house felt more like a weird psychological manipulation tool with no real payoff, rather than a meaningful part of the plot.
Lack of Flow
I love a good mystery, but Forgotten took it too far. The twists worked because they blindsided us, but the clues were nonexistent. We were trying to solve for A or B, only to be hit with an answer we didn’t even know was possible. The kidnapping? Juicy, but pointless. And the brother’s personality switch was just confusing—didn’t tie into anything. It was like they were so focused on making him suspicious that they forgot about the bigger plan.
Plot Overload
This movie couldn’t decide what it wanted to be. The two major plots—the kidnapping and the murder—competed for attention. They ended up just getting thrown at us in phases, with no real resolution. The kidnapping took way too much focus, especially considering how insignificant it turned out to be. Maybe they could’ve focused on one plot or expanded the story to give everything the attention it deserved.
The Trailer Lied (a Little)
Not a huge deal, but the trailer totally sold this as a "my-brother-isn’t-my-brother" thriller, and that wasn’t even the main plot. It definitely misled me, but I’m glad the movie still held up despite the bait-and-switch.
Final Thoughts
This movie is one of my top-rated thrillers. It hooked me from the start, with twists and a hauntingly poetic ending. A solid 9/10 from me.
But once you look closer, the cracks start showing—like the multiple main plots fighting for attention, and the kidnapping arc that didn’t really go anywhere. It’s one of those movies where the first watch is a rollercoaster, but on a second go, you’ll catch a few eyebrow-raising moments.
Still, no movie is perfect. Forgotten delivered where it counted. It’s the kind of thriller you wish you could experience for the first time again. And if you do rewatch it, just don’t think too hard about the plot holes—gasp dramatically, pretend you didn’t see them, and keep the popcorn coming.
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This review may contain spoilers
"who you are [to me] is someone who leaves....to Arthur you're someone who stays"
I started crying at the point (1/2 way) when Teo Yoo's character, Hae Sung, enters the lobby of a NY hotel on a quixotic quest to meet his first love, Nora Moon. The soundtrack kicks into high gear with slowed chords and intense swelling volume. The flashbacks previous to this had simply the discreet continuous background hum of NY, Seoul and Toronto which is never bothersome. After abt 20 minutes points of music begin to well up through it , starting while HS is on his military service.Great movies have a series of carefully framed and placed lines which reverberate backwards reinterpreting the scenes beforehand, and forwards to color what is to come. To quote them is often to misinterpret or spoil a movie, so I use one to just point to the frame of the story, only a very mild spoiler.
The lines above are from the very first scene of the movie, but they are unheard until the scene is played out in realtime later. Hae Sung sits at a bar in NY with Nora and her husband Arthur Zaturansky, the night before HS returns home to Seoul. He and Nora chat casually in Korean, using references to drama plotlines to knit together their different understandings and feeling,s about their meetings and partings, now and in the past. Arthur can only vaguely follow their conversation, but he (graciously) trusts Nora and I think partially understands that a continuing friendship that includes him might exist.
Because both Nora and Arthur are writers, HS's interactions with them are both more and less perilous. More because imaginary scenarios have the emotional power to destabilize emotions, but less because a writer's curiousity confers a sort of double vision of recording and thinking about lived emotions while experiencing them, which slows reaction times. Teo Yoo's emotions (as HS) wash across his face but Greta Lee's face (as NM) catches light while she looks at him and we think -- is he flirting, does she resist it, what are these feelings? The movie is in English, and she is the POV, the way we see HS. As viewers of kdrama the juxtaposition of the felt lives of Korea and the US hurts to watch, just as within Nora Moon the collision of her past and present hurts.
Teo Yoo is an interesting actor in that he is fully bi/tri lingual, and intelligently so -- it makes him especially able to navigate these cross-cultural scripts. The soundtrack was composed by two members of a band called the Grizzly Bear -- why do I know this? Because I was sure the composer/sound editors had to be Korean, they were so dominantly in emotional control, so I looked them up and they werent. The cinematography is gorgeous. My favorites: a Staten Island Ferry ride, the bar scene and the flashbacks to childhood in Seoul where the mess of electrical lines above the streets reminds me of the innocence of 2006 Seoul in One Fine Day.
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This review may contain spoilers
Strictly speaking from someone who has not read the manga, the movie is generally cute. The teacher/ student love position will likely be a source of contention for people before you even get like 20% into the story. If you can get over that, this is a pretty decent movie. I will say you can tell that it feels like exposition is missing due to the speed of character interactions. Like Suzume and Yuyuka becoming friends so fast. Or Mamura liking Suzume feeling like the build up was missing. Especially during the Christmas scene, it didn't feel like it make any sense why he liked her. There was no build up to show that next to a few lingering looks. You hooks argue it was just implied but it wasn't strong enough in my opinion. I'm assuming there's scenes in the source material that shows that. So being one of the main relationships, it felt underwhelming. The relationship between Suzume and the Sensei also felt the same. Not enough definition of why. So this being the main story kinda broke the immersion.
Yukichi's confrontation with Satsuki also didn't feel strong because he spoke as if we had pretense to his and Suzume's relationship. We saw nothing of Yukichi's interactions with Suzume's to indicate if this was true. He totally felt like a throwaway character especially because they never really revealed what him and Satsuki talked about near the end.
Mei for me was definitely the right person to choose for this main role however. She's the perfect person to play a naive but emotional character. She has this perpetual look of confusion. Definitely felt like a manga heroine. She was ahead of everyone in terms of acting capability in this movie. She felt the most believable. There were tons of scenes with awkward interactions but for the most part Mei kept it grounded.
Now let's talk about the cinematography. It's very well done. The one thing about Japanese movies is when they do lighting well it has a totally different feel to western movies. The sense of a special moment or place in time getting captured in isolation was featured really well in this movie. The Christmas tree scene or the night time conversation between Mamura and Suzume come to mind.
I suppose this may also come from the manga panels framing key sequences to emphasize their importance and translating it over to live action. But there are some really pretty shots in this movie. It helps the movie's overall appeal since some of the relationships don't truly have good reasoning.
The music is very cute as well. I can't really remember much of the music but I can tell you it made me cheerful. The race theme was very dramatic though! And the ending theme is very bubbly.
I think if you are just looking for a nice movie to throw on, this would be a good candidate.
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