Tension-filled story with fantastic cinematography
I'm a sucker for anything time related and this was no different — I think they did the time rift thriller thing perfectly; the speed at which the timeline would change was so fast and it really instilled a feeling of high stakes. There are some questions about how time works and potential plot holes if you think more deeply but this was really one of those fun tension-filled films that I just immersed myself into, and the ability of the movie to make me suspend my disbelief is really just a testament to how it was made.The cinematography was really great as well. I absolutely loved seeing the different timelines being differentiated through color filters. One of my favorite watches for this October.
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The vast majority of the movie was very much told in a recap-video style manner by the two MLs over the events that occurred in "2gether" and "Still 2gether." The first half of "2gether" is told from Tine's narrative point of view, while the second half of "2gether" were told from Sarawat's POV. The events of "Still 2gether" (as well as all of the support couples) were more of a montage than a recap and I think Sarawat continued narrating into this segment. I say "I think" because it seemed like they either got different actors for the narration (which I couldn't find support of in the credits) or purposefully made them sound different. This entire narration is told while the leads are getting ready for their graduation ceremony - which we are reminded of by a handful of intermission scenes between recapped plot arcs, and at the end which is all new content.
The analysis:
Among the recap scenes, I think a handful of moments were either edited or used alternate takes in such a way to provide a slightly different emphasis that reflected the narrated inner monologues of the characters. Thankfully, this recapping also eliminated the more cringe-y scenes that I hated from the drama. But, Tine's inner monologue was even more narcissistic in nature than the drama had presented him at the beginning. Nor did some of these thoughts seem true to the longer scene versions and context from the drama. It made it seem like Tine was narrating the lies/excuses he was telling himself, making him a mildly unreliable narrator at times (from my reading of the character in the full drama). Also, for new viewers, the suddenness at which characters appeared at key moments in the recap may be confusing, as they would largely be missing beforehand.
Of course, it's not "2gether" without the Scrubb-centric soundtrack. And because of the recap-like glazing over the content, this felt more fluffy and nostalgic than the previous versions. And, like i said, the exclusion of the most cringe-y scenes was much appreciated as a viewer. However, "Still 2gether" being my favorite part of the franchise, I'm a little sad that they basically turned it into a montage. I also think that there would have been more value if we had Sarawat narrating over the beginning half of 2gether, since we know so little about his perspective in this portion of the story.
Overall, this is decent. Fans may like to compare scenes and have explicit intel into characters' thoughts. The overarching story surrounding the recapping was cute. Non-fans might appreciate being in-the-know without having to sit through the entire franchise (so long as they are okay with not knowing quite how everything and everyone fits).
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Very Brutal....
I think it's after Witch, i saw a Movie which has so many violence sequences. It's not a new thing in the k movie world. But it's been some time since a movie like this out from korean and don't think that it's an easy going film. It's very brutal after some point also disturbing.The whole story is happening on a ship. A ship with a bunch of criminals who was transferring From Philippine to korea. Started slowly but after some time some unusual things will fall under the place, from thereon it's horrible.
No story or screenplay or even performance stand before the violence. The way they captured those bloody Brutal and bloodsheding violence is unbelievable to watch. Very creepy and definitely 18+. So watch it own your risk. Surely you will get a different experience just like Witch Part 1
#N45views
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Fun & Easy to Follow for Genre Fans
I don't understand what was difficult for other people to follow in this movie. It all seemed straightforward to me (though I've seen dozens of movies that are just like it). I enjoyed the directing, as it reminded me many times of other medical-experimentation horror movies, especially Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator and also From Beyond. It had a fair mix of shots and campy vibes from each. The mad scientist doctor had definite Dr. Herbert West vibes, and the second-sight unlocking of abilities was similar to From Beyond. Both of these have inspired countless movies over the years, so some of the elements are just genre staples at this point. It was nice to see though.If directors are going to borrow heavily from films of the past, I expect them to do something that would have been difficult or impossible to do in the past. The computer generated effects 100% fit the bill there. It gave an awesome aesthetic to the film-- both creepy and beautiful, sometimes all at once. None of them could have worked before in high quality representations (in practical effects it would have been nearly impossible).
The ML's acting was pretty compelling. The co-star was campy af, but as mentioned, that worked for the genre. I thought the length might over-stay its welcome, but I honestly wished it was longer so that they could explore more "traumas". Honestly, I loved the physical representations of people's issues. Some were obvious, but some were quite clever. The teen girl in particular was an interesting set of ideas that gelled quite well.
Altogether, it was a bit too derivative to be a perfect film, and the tone was slightly uneven as well (the campy vs the serious), but it was still a nice effort and thoroughly enjoyable. In my view, it could have gone MORE cerebral because it kept threatening to become truly unique and intricate, but it never did.
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This movie is painfully 3D.
It’s so over the top, I honestly think I would get sick if I watched it in 3D in a cinema. Honestly, the makers had no chill. They thought “What elements can we make in 3D?” and went with the answer “all”. Because of that it feels as if the whole movie was done on a green screen…It just felt cheap? It feels closer to 2004 than 2014 production. Technically speaking, with good storytelling and production this could be a horror movie with a social message… Sadly the delivery of… everything was off.
It just borrowed plot lines, stories and twists from other horror movies without adding anything new and refreshing.
Overall, rather skippable. It's one of the movies that ends I the viewer has little thoughts about it.
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Zombie flick with lots of laughs and surprisingly moving moments.
I did not expect to cry during a zombie horror comedy, yet this movie surprisingly had a few touching moments and a lot of good comedy.Flawed family that obviously cares about each other - I am weak for things like that. Add a found family trope to that and you won’t see me complaining. The characters were the core of the movie and they were both amazingly written and perfectly portrayed.
I am honestly not much of a comedy person, but this was amazingly funny. Some jokes were more in my face than the others, but it was all well balanced so I never felt overwhelmed. They were able to keep the light atmosphere without killing all the thrills that come with zombie apocalypse.
Out of all the characters, Hae Gul, Jjong Bi and Man Deok were my favorites, but with how unique and fun everyone was, I’m sure each viewer can find their favorite to root for.
It’s almost a 2 hours movie, but it never felt long. Some might think the set up took too long, as the true action starts well past half point of the movie, but for me it was all necessary. For the characters’ choices to have sense in the last few scenes, we truly needed all that built up. Personally I believe this had some solid pacing - not too slow, not too fast.
Production value was amazing. Honestly beautiful shots. Sometimes I did not know if I should laugh about the comedy or appreciate how pretty the scenery is.
Overall, I would highly recommend it. Great cast, great characters, great story and great jokes. It’s simply a well executed zombie horror comedy.
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I’m on the ghost side.
This is one of the horror movies where you cannot stop yourself from rooting for the “evil” character. I just sat there and thought: it would be a happy ending if everyone dies.I think the movie does a rather good job at blending the horror with a bit melo romantic undertones. It’s basically rom-com cliches meet vengeful spirit.
Nothing new, nothing outstanding and nothing groundbreaking, but it is a fun watch. The plot is extremely easy to follow, so it serves as a good evening fun watch. We get a few jump scares, we get the sob story, we get some awful teenagers - everything one needs in a teen horror flick.
The acting was good. Ha Neul obviously delivers - I don’t think he ever failed at any role. Kim So Eun might not be the strongest actress out there, but she does well in this role. I do think the majority of the casting was fail age wise - all of them looked like they were in their 20’. Some looked as mature as the teachers… That’s something we often get with stories set in high school though, so I guess there is no point complaining.
Overall, a fun and simple story.
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A deep and complex look at a traditional love triangle
Well paced. Interesting. Heartfelt. Emotional. Just a few words to describe 20th Century Girl. The movie does well setting the groundwork for the relationships that are built throughout its runtime.This movie tells a deep and lifelong story about lost love in a short amount of time. I hope that more Korean dramas have pacing more on par with what we saw here. It never dragged its story with filler and continued to move forward at a pace that kept it fresh and interesting. Obviously, like most K-Dramas a lot of the issues that come up between our characters is as a result of an egregious lack of communication skills, but the motivation for the misunderstanding was plausible, so it gets a pass here.
Otherwise, I greatly appreciated the change in tone later in that movie and how it wasn’t so heavy handed with showing us too much. Sometimes it’s better to leave things up to to audience interpretation rather than have it spelt out so obviously, as tends to be a cliché in romantic K-Dramas. The ambiguity of the twist might be divisive, (depending on your tastes) but achieves its intention. Furthermore, maybe we could have spent a little more time with the other leads, but that’s a small nitpick in an otherwise fine movie.
I generally think they focused their attention where they needed to and that this is definitely a movie worth watching. If you’re looking for something a little different in the genre of Korean “romantic comedies”, definitely give 20th century girl a try.
Recommendation: WATCH
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This is one of the weirdest love stories I have ever seen…
And this is not a compliment. But I also cannot truly say it’s a bad thing. There is so much wrong with this romance, I could not stop laughing when I finished the movie.Alice: Boy From Wonderland is quite an experience. First 50 minutes are a true snoozefest. Everything is confusing, but not in a good and interesting way, but more of a “nothing holds my attention”. I became so indifferent to what was happening on screen it was actually hard to follow the plot, because I could not force myself to pay much attention.
Then around half way through stuff starts to happen, and slowly (AND I MEAN SLOWLY) we start to get some puzzle pieces to get the full picture. And then the whole explanation happened and my brain just gave up. Plow wise, I feel like the answer to the majority of the question, but characters’ motivation wise, I am painfully confused.
I’m honestly not sure how I am supposed to feel about romance. The more explanations I’ve got, the more confused I’ve got. Am I supposed to ship it? Can I do it? I finished the movie and went “What now? You cannot leave me with conflicting emotions like that”...
It also had some weird genre mix ups. Especially with the presentation of the female shaman. I was supposed to both treat her seriously, as she knew the key to fixing the mystery and the nightmares, but also she had quite a few comedic moments that did not fit the mood of the movie at all.
Performance wise - decent. Honestly speaking, probably the weakest performance I have seen from Jung So Min. Hong Jong Hyun is not exactly known to be a good actor so that sums up his performance.
Production wise, at times it felt like it was made out of stock content, edited on a free software. Especially during the opening scene.
Overall… Once you start it, you have to finish it. I don’t know if it’s worth the watch, but that ending and explanation of the plot needs to be seen and experienced in its whole confusing glory.
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What’s the most surprising is how aesthetically pleasing the movie was. Loved all the aerial shots. I also liked the leading shots that showed the surroundings and not actually what was happening. Build that tension!
That said, one scene was painfully gross. Gross, but I also could not stop laughing about it.
Overall, a solid short horror. Quality of directing and editing. Would recommend.
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A mostly forgettable and boring space romp we've seen before
I want to preface that I enjoy Song Joong-Ki and Kim Tae-Ri as actors.Space Sweepers has all the looks of an ambitious production, but no substance to back it up. It's a real shame and a waste of talent. The plot is fairly generic and definitely something you've seen before if you've watched any science fiction from Hollywood or anime from Japan, which isn't necessarily a problem if it's done correctly (see: Bebop, Cowboy), but this movie is neither compelling or interesting to warrant it's 2 hour runtime.
We learn next to nothing about the characters they introduce us to. The world building is scattered, inconsistent, and most of the time you're stuck watching a gigantic CGI mess. What brought this group of 4 together? What are their goals? How does anyone else feel about the UTS? There are so many underdeveloped plot points, no wonder that it's hard to care about anything that's happening on the screen.
The central antagonist has the same, simple, braindead modus operandi that has been overused to death. Get rid of the filth, save only the elite. What is this? A DC movie? Marvel? He even comes complete with random transformations and changes in voice that never gets explained. His back story even feels tacked on with a short monologue, like it’s supposed to be enough. The movie just drops these minor tidbits about a character's life and expects us to go "Wow, nice character building!" and calls it a day. Imagine if you'd watched Avengers: Endgame without watching any of the previous Marvel movies. That's what this feels like. It "feels" like I'm supposed to care about these characters, but I'm missing so much context as to "why". They meet this random girl, they show us a couple scenes of them interacting, and a minute later, she's like family that's been with them since day one. I don't get it.
In the end, nothing really happens, we ultimately reset to where we were in the beginning, with some slight changes to a robot for some reason? The ultimate climax of the movie is robbed by a stupid power that is never ultimately explained and can seemingly do anything and everything without limit. Who gave this movie Infinity Stones plot armor? It's lazy.
Ultimately, this movie is a ton of sizzle and no steak. The bright colors, star actors and diversity of language gives the appearance of a grand production, but it's ultimately for nothing. Space Sweepers is just boring.
Recommendation: PASS
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A surprisingly wholesome movie
Coming it to think about it, I don't even know why I started this. It was just a whim of mood that I actually started this. I didn't know most of the cast (even if I had heard of them, I had never really watched any of their dramas or movies) and the plot seemed cliché and wasn't remotely tempting. But, now that I finished it, I totally don't regret starting it in the first place!Honestly, the story isn't anything new and one may come across tons of this kind of storylines in the dramaland, but you won't come across a movie with a better execution of such a storyline that this one. This movie has many of the most over used troups and tags in dramaland like 'first love', 'time skip', 'makeover', 'coming of age' etc. It even has a love square, but it's not frustrating at all! In fact, they make your heart flutter as these helps the leads to come closer to eachother and recognise their love for each other. The way in which Truly and Tsu Tai Yu fell for eachother without even realising it, and when they finially realised it everything was too late... I really loved such cliché parts of the plot! But, had this been a 20+ episode drama, it might have ruined everything. The pace of the story was perfect to evoke a kind of nostalgia in the audience. The story is extremely simple yet so good and this is one of the plus points of this movie!
As I said before, I was unfamiliar with the cast of the drama. The only person I had heard of was Darren Wang and I had watched Jerry Yan's Meteor Garden. That was all.
I rarely get impressed with actings in movies since they are short and don't explore wide varieties of emotions of the actors and actresses. Now, after watching this movies, I'm really tempted to watch other workes of Darren Wang and Vivan Sung! They were truly awesome here! Darren was amazing portraying the bad boy Tsu Tai Yu and Vivan Sung in portraying the clumsy Truy. There were rooms for improvement for Dino Lee and Dewi Chein, but the over all performance form the whole cast was great. Even if Joe Chen and Jerry Yan were just cameo of the adult version of Truly and Tai Yu, I could feel their dynamics with eachother in the last scenes. I really wish it were longer!
Music was great and apt for the scenes. The rewatch value's fairly high too, compared to the ones I have given to other movies.
I don't usually rate dramas or movies 9.5, let alone a movie with a cliché plot. But this somehow is an exception. I can't even explain why I rated in 9.5! It's just my mind and heart telling me to do it even if the brain's not.
Overall, this is a surprisingly wholesome movie with a roller coaster of emotions portrayed It's a highly recommended movie
if you are someone who is past his/her school life for this movie, I believe, would take you back to your childhood days, when you were crushing on a hansome popular boy.
P.S. Don't mind any typos. I tend to have many of them.
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There are many good aspects of it. It’s rather unpredictable - it has quite a few twists and turns that all felt understandable (at least to the extent a short length allowed). I also appreciate when at the beginning the built up tension is broken by a joke/one liner from a new character on screen. Delivering scares each time the tension is high is not a way to go, because the viewers start to know what to expect. That’s why I appreciate when movies take a step back from time to time.
Drowned out sounds and slow motion used to indicate the distorted perception and fixation on a specific situation by a character? Love it. It’s always effective and I wish more movies used it.
The acting went from good to decent for a smaller production like this. I’m not the biggest fan of Ha Joon’s character, and weirdly I enjoyed a bit twisted Min Woo more.
All that said, I appreciate the movie from the objective standpoint, but I did not quite vibe with it subjectively.
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Whispering Corridors 5: A Blood Pledge
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A Blood Pledge also has the weakest plot and motivations of the characters. I always felt like some of the Whispering Corridors movies at least try to tackle some more serious issues, but here the focus was on a random girl feeling insecure about the most unimportant issue, while the other characters truly have to deal with serious life problems.
Sure, the plot might have been a way to show how privileged the other girl was, and how blinded by her lack of real life experience she was, but it never felt this way.
The acting was one of the weakest from all Whispering Corridors movies. I guess Oh Yeon Seo did the best job, but even she was barely passable.
Overall, I honestly finished it only so I can move on to the newest installment.
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A collection of writers/directors for a collection of diversely told diverse stories.
Some of the stories were really touching, others (namely the second one) were quite cringe. As all of these tales are being told under an overarching storyline of a radio host reading stories submitted by listeners, each of the stories consist of a different style (which is aided along by the real-world fact that each of these stories had a different director/screenwriter). This diversity of storytelling styles really lends well to the overarching story. And I think all viewers will find stories that they both either liked or disliked featured in this omnibus.These tales are filled with the pain of not-meant-to-be's, self-sacrifice, and missed opportunities. There's a diversity of characters and a diversity of reasons their love was left unrequited, and even unconfessed in some.
It was overall a good watch. It had a clear tone and mood. The acting was well-done. And I love omnibus/anthology stories, especially when there is an overarching storyline connecting everything (as opposed to only linked by theme). The music was mostly ambient/classical style, but lent well to the tones of the scenes when noticed. Nothing particularly blew me away though, and I doubt that the majority of the film will prove to be a lasting sort of memorable.
*Note: at the time of this review, the order of the stories listed in the description is different than the order presented in the movie itself.
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