Reviews

Easy watch

This movie expands on the short show of the same name. I saw that Yokohama Ryusei was in this, so decided to give it a try. It was cute, for what it was. It was sort of like watching a live action cartoon, with over-the-top sound effects, exaggerated movements and facial expressions. Because it was so cartoonish, I wasn't able to feel anything for the characters.

It had your typical, excessively socially awkward teens that are seen in a lot of the Japanese shows. Sometimes, it's like watching people that have been raised with wolves coming into contact with humans for the first time in their lives. Fearful, skittish, unable to maintain a conversation. This movie did have the addition of a cousin to supposedly create some tension between the couple. My only thoughts of him were, "Did they use an egg beater to arrange his hair?!"

This show used the trope of misunderstanding/lack of communication, which is always frustrating to me. The movie as a whole was okay, I suppose but it never drew me in. I think I was probably slightly generous with my rating, only because the movie was completely innocuous and didn't irritate me.

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One of my fav movies!

Okay, so this is a Zhang Yimou film so you should already have high expectations and this one absolutely delivered! The main leads' love story is so sweet and tragic. I cried so much it was insane. When she realizes he does really care for her because they spent the night together and when she didn't want to have sex he was perfectly content with just holding her in his arms.

One of the things I wanted to touch on is Zhou Dongyu's acting. I first saw her in Sparrow 麻雀 and honestly I felt her character was so whiney and the fake crying was just really bad. I think this is where having a good director and a good script really pulls its weight. Her acting was so good and when she cried it was really believable.

I will leave it at that because you should really watch it for yourself!

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The beginning really confused me
Things happen here and there.
Some scenes scared me, there's a lot of jumpscare.

As the movie goes i started to understand what's going on. It was funny then scary then funny again then heartwarming. The plot twist were really unexpected!

The ost was really good! Especially the one playing at the end.

However the poster is misleading. It made me think that the pink hair girl is the FL, but she actually isn't.

This is a movie that needs to be watch few times so that i could understand. But i can't stand the scary scenes, i don't think i could ever rewatch it alone.

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This could’ve been yet another quasi-snuff film, instead we get a cult classic

Right, we don’t need yet another key observation regarding the graphic violence, both phiscially and sexually, in the film. But what does need to be brought to attention and be a bigger talking point is how hilarious Ichi The Killer is at times. I’m serious as well. The film blends the tone differently depending on where in the film but in the final scenes, the climax of the film has some brilliant comedic moments. Kaneko’s son booting Ichi on the floor was a legitimate laugh out loud moment. And the actual stand-off between Ichi and Kakihara is very cartoonish. Yet another big laughing moment was Kakihara trying to bring an injured Ichi to his feet, only for Ichi to collapse under the pain once more, much to his disappointment. It’s purposely lacklustre rather than being a big dramatic fight to the death; it’s bold and admirable in that way. Enough about Kakihara and Ichi, what about Jijii’s muscular body? I’m dead.

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I am extremely annoyed. Read second paragraph if you dont want the movie spoiled.

(skip to next pargraph for short summary without spoilers) SUMMARY WITH SPOILERS: To summarise this movie: annoying. There are so many scenes where the thinking of the leads isnt logical. How are CRIMINALS so afraid of a single guy as if he's a vengeful spirit that they cant easily get rid of lmao. It almost feels like the director got a criminal heist storyline from someone layed out in front of him on a table and just decided to scribble horror elements all over with a crayon... There were plenty of moments where Han could have been killed, but for some reason these three buddies decided to keep running and running. I havent even finished the movie. I was so bothered that i decided to share my annoyance before finishing this movie. The scene right before the 2 hour mark where one of the friends died was my last straw. He did not have to die if it wasnt for the main lead being an idiot. In that parking lot scene he couldve shot Han in his head, but he decided to be a pussy.. i mean the acting was amazing, but that wont make up for the amount of times ive been bothered by the horrible storyline and the horrible decisions that were made. And the chase that broke out when one of the friends left also has me annoyed. Han keeps popping out a cigarette whenever he feels like it and he starts smoking out in the open as if hes inviting them to shoot at him. BUT THEY DONT. THE ONLY MOMENTS THEY DECIDE TO SHOOT IS WHEN THEY ARE GETTING SHOT AT. The thrill during the first half of the movie was insane, but now im just left with frustration which ruins the whole movie. It honestly gets cringe. Suspenseful music starts playing when the main lead decides to confront Han after his friend got killed. It took the death of a friend for him to come to his senses. At this point he might aswell lay next to his dead friend and wait to get shot. I cant believe a movie managed to pull so much hatred out of me. Its also hella annoying how Han manages to dodge every bullet, but is also able to hit shots unlike others. By the way im updating this as im watching the movie. Im proud to announce Han finally got shot. In his shoulder... Make it more fatal cmon now. Ok so i finished the movie. Han gets shot multiple times, falls into the sea but doesn't die so main lead decides to chase after Han. His friend that went back to his parents is also supposedly dead and the end of the movie is main lead leaving Hawaii to go back after Han.


SHORTLY SUMMARISED WITHOUT SPOILERS: Plotholes, stupid decisions that make the movie unbearable, not enough backstory, horror elements thrown into a money heist movie (done in a horrible way), the bad guy is portrayed as way too mighty and the only good thing about this movie was the acting. Its crazy how a newbie director managed to get hold of this cast, but please someone take away the writing from him cuz multitasking is not for him. The great acting sadly doesnt make up for the bad story. And the end is an open ending if anyone cares about knowing that.

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Looking at Kim Dae Hwan’s filmography, I see that he had an appearance in the Sageuk, Jang Hee Bin and this is his second film (first being with him writing behind it). It’s clearly a cheap production with a hand held camera for even the tracking scenes but the amateurish camera work adds credibility to the realistic story of two soon to be parents that are forced to meet each other's parents, both of whom have a tense relationship with. There is a bit of a social difference between the two but that doesn’t play too much into the story, only serving to put a slightly wider wedge between Ji Young (Kim Sae-byuk, The Woman Who Ran) and Ji Young’s mother, who pushes Ji Young into doing things that she can brag about to her friends. And likewise for Su-hyun (Jo Hyun-chu, Inspector Koo) and his father, only the difference being that his verbally abusive father thinks it's a step to being a man, likely revealing why the son doesn’t see his family. The family greetings turn from pleasant to awkward very quickly. But the couple are great together. Both are mature and will talk things out when there are disagreements. Both are understanding when it comes to each other’s families. And then in the end, they were happy in their fates, just walking among the nightlife of the city.

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Absolutely Ridiculous

This movie is terrible. That's it. That's all!

The Mimic has a good concept but the the execution of the movie is just dumb. The FL/mother's actions throughout the film were nonsensical and yes I understand she's mentally unstable and that she is grieving the loss of a child. She is warned mutiple times not to trust the apparition and time and again she chose the opposite! MADE NO SENSE. I felt like she didn't even care for her daughter who was alive and well (well maybe I'm really not sure she survived the night!). She totally abandoned her in the end.

The only positive thing I have to say is that the young actress Shin Rin Ah, was fantatsic.

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They could have done better... but I kinda liked it

A big disclaimer before starting to watch the movies that you should remember.
It's a live-action. It means that the actors are humans and that it's impossible to recreate the same exact effects of the anime (or manga). I accepted this truth and the whole experience became way more pleasing.

POSITIVE POINTS
-they really worked hard to try to recreate the characters in all their physical details (apart from Winry, I honestly don't understand why she's the only one without blonde hair. WELL). If we ignore the fact that the original characters don't have "asian features" (at least not all of them), I think they managed to represent everyone at their best. Even the characters that appeared for a few scenes were as close to the original as possible.
-the acting was kind of cringe in some parts, especially when they tried to recreate the comical scenes, but apart from this, all the actors did a good job recreating their characters.
-the music was okay, but nothing will ever win against the anime OSTs.
-CGI/Special effects. Yes, I liked them. They weren't super realistic, but I mean the point of this story is not being realistic. They were pretty similar to the anime and they worked pretty well.

NEGATIVE POINTS
-WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PLOT? I don't know what they were thinking when they were making the script for the movies, but they surely got lost somewhere. They had a solid plot to start with and I understand that you cannot fill EVERYTHING in three movies, but there were some parts that were essential. Also, for some reason, they mixed some parts and changed the order of the timeline. For some scenes, it wasn't that bad, but knowing how it was supposed to go just made everything so confusing. And if it was confusing for someone who knew what the story wanted to tell, I can't imagine what people can understand without the anime/manga background.
This was the biggest flaw of all three movies and I was kinda disappointed because they already had a story to work with.
-Another negative point was some important missing characters. Where is Dr. Marcho??? He is super important for the whole plot...

At the end, I gave a high mark because I truly enjoy this story and I despite everything I also enjoyed the movies. They could have done better, yes. But if you are a fan of FMA they are a nice way to spend a rainy weekend. And to remind you why FMA is such an amazing masterpiece.

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Painful lack of direction and vision.

Here’s the thing - I actually enjoyed it quite a bit at the beginning, up till they introduced the last group of characters. And that last group completely ruined the experience for me. I just did not understand what this movie wanted to be.

It tried to be a fun action, survival, drama, dumb blockbuster… and it ended up being nothing truly worth watching. The emotional scenes were flat and unearned, the action was decent, but the car chase scenes were laughable with full CGI cars, one whole side plot was useless and brought exactly nothing to the story except getting my brain boil from the stupidity.

I truly wanted to like it. I waited long enough to be able to separate it from Train to Busan, and see it as a stand alone movie. Sadly, it’s an awful sequel, and mediocre at best stand alone.

The movie lacked focus - too many characters, too many groups with their own individual motivations, too many plots to make it a well written and presented story. The more they added, the worse it got.

Some scenery shots were beautiful, some had such a strong game quality because of the editing and CGI, it ruined the scenes. Even the zombies were worse than in the Train to Busan. One would think they would improve over the years… It’s not like the special effects industry got worse in the 4 years gap between the two titles.

The acting was good, but the characters were so boring and had close to zero personality, it was not exactly a hard job to deliver a decent performance. Kids did the best. Loved their scenes the most.

Overall, skippable. All the driving in the dark got me thinking I'm watching the Fast & Furious Zombie edition. The movie ended and I went - that’s it? It lacked the impact - be it action and entertainment or emotional delivery like the first movie had.

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A suicidal road trip taken by a drunken ex-civil servant (Asano Tadanobu) and a depressed bar hostess (Koizumi Kyoko) proves to be threputic and life changing but it takes a while to get there. There is drug taking (sleeping pills, mind you), painful reminiscing and drinking. Lots of drinking. The flashbacks peel back the layers of our characters and what led them to this path, doing it in a backwards manner similar to the structure of insomnia, which only added to the tragic events. Eventually we get a happy ending to the story. A mother changes her life and gets her kid back while a drunk feels satisfied for the first time in a long time without needing the influence of alcohol. I like to think that they eventually would meet up again and become happy together but being happy separately is just as fine an ending as any.

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This one broke me...

For me, this movie was really great. "2037" made me cry a lot. The plot was really heartbreaking.

In my opinion, the relationship between a deaf mother and her daughter has been shown very well. It may seem a bit cold but I think it's because Yoon Young's life was not easy. She felt she had to look after her mother, so she decided to lie that she didn't drop out of school and she worked a lot. But she was still happy and wanted to fight for herself by passing the government exam. She and her mother cared for each other and were happy together until this terrible thing happened.

Then Yoon Young was wrongly imprisoned and she had a really hard time, despite the fact that her fellow inmates tried very hard to help her. The relationship between the fellow prisoners was great. They were kind and thoughtful towards Yoon Young.

The emotions in this film were shown so well that it was easy for the viewer to empathize with them.

This is one of the best movies I have ever watched.

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Way to strip a plot of any suspense by revealing everything from the start.

Welcome to the world of one of the worst storytelling examples in the history of horror. Why did they decide to show so much of the background and context of the supernatural events, when the unknown is the vital and most important part of any horror movie?

My brain hurts so much. I feel like the only people who put any effort into this project were the actors, and I honestly feel bad for them.

The level of ridiculousness? Unimaginable. The pacing? PAINFUL. The remake of the game takes about 4 hours of gameplay to complete. They tried to fit that into a 1 hour and 30 minutes movie, and they failed. Since there was so much to show and tell, there was no breathing moment, no time to build the atmosphere and the suspense - I was bombarded with information, action and poor CGI.

There were so many laughable moments. They literally introduced, explained with dialogue and flashbacks, and concluded a whole new past plotline 7 minutes before the movie ended. I think this tells you a lot about the writing and pacing of The Labyrinth.

Do yourself a favor and just watch a whole playthrough on youtube or play the game yourself - the story makes more sense, there is a better suspense and even the graphics for the phone remake are better than any CGI this movie gave us.

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It's like Tom & Jerry, if they were a serial killer and a hitman... and if it made you cry (Okay, it's not THAT much like Tom & Jerry)

PROS
- The casting is superb! Lee Jung-Jae is a genuinely terrifying villain and portrays the character perfectly
- Even though the movie has slow pacing in the first half, it delivers loads of atmosphere and audio/visual story telling
- Some of the score sounds more fitting to a horror movie, but it works so well in creating an unsettling tone
- The action scenes are expertly choreographed and are overflowing with realistic-looking violence and seat-gripping excitement
- Somehow there are even some beautiful moments that are touching and give a necessary balance to the rest of the film's overall "heaviness"

CONS
- There is an indirect story telling method that provides depth to the protagonist and it is easy to miss details
- The main character is not properly introduced for awhile, which was a bit unusual
- Some of the environments look very mid 00s with its oversaturated yellow tint aesthetics
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I can't think of a better movie to showcase the amazing talents of Hwang Jung-Min and Lee Jung-Jae. If you're familiar with Korean films (or have seen Squid Game), you'll definitely recognize these icons.

This is a heavy watch with a lot of violence, so beware if you're sensitive to those things. Other than that, it is pretty easy to recommend. This film has a similar feel to another great crime action/thriller called Night in Paradise; however, this one is less of a downer.

I can actually see myself wanting to re-watch this in the future.

8/10

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"Everything will be fine when the sun rises"

From the moment you see four white circles dancing over frosted tree tops you know you are watching a master at work. Director Zhang Yi Mou takes on the spy genre with the grace and flare he has refined over the decades.

Four Chinese spies trained in the USSR drop into Japanese controlled Manchuria to rescue an escaped prisoner of the dreaded Beiyinhe camp, where prisoners were tortured, experimented on and killed. They want him to tell his story so that the world will know what is going on in those devilish camps. Unfortunately, from the moment they hit the snow covered ground and split up they find themselves in even greater danger because a traitor has revealed their mission to the enemy.

Xiang Chen partners with Lan as Team 1, while his wife, Yu, and Lan's lover Chu Liang form Team 2. Both teams run into subterfuge and lies dipped in murderous intent. The pace of the film moves ever forward with enough chases through the snow on foot, in trains, and in automobiles to keep things exciting. It's often a cat and mouse and cat and mole frantic affair. The script took a sentimental turn at the end, which frankly, I enjoyed because I'm a big softie at heart, even when watching a spy film. That's not to say there wasn't violence, fair warning for the squeamish, there were some utterly brutal torture scenes and deaths.

Zhang Yi Mou took a flawed script and made it gripping as each of the team members had to get by on their wits as well as their training. His trademark stunning shots and framing were in effect in every scene. This truly looked like a frigid world, emotionally and physically. The Republican Era costumes were sharp and spy approved black with plenty of Fedoras and fur-lined coats. Cho Young Wuk's music perfectly fit the scenes regardless of the mood. The closing song's melody was hauntingly beautiful. As a whole the film was stunningly put together.

Zhang Yi as the team leader did an admirable job playing the skilled and stoic spy. Yu He Wei as Zhou, the man dangerously straddling two worlds had me rooting for him and hoping I wasn't wrong. Unlike many Zhang Yi Mou films, the women's roles seemed less well defined though the two female spies held their own as they struggled to find a way out of the traps they were in.

Cliff Walkers wasn't a perfect film but I found it engaging nonetheless and a treat for the eyes and ears. Zhang Yi Mou has run afoul of the censors before so hopefully, this more patriotic film will give him more room to work in future endeavors. Having said that, he kept the political propaganda to a minimum focusing more on the individuals, their strategies to overcome the terrible odds and sacrifices that had to be made. I found it to be a well made spy thriller and worth checking out, especially if you enjoy this director's works.

9/24/22

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When they kissed, I felt it. Right there is the momentum when the film came together.

The first part of the film is a documentary piece about the town Gojo City, where a tour guide and tourists see the sights and the residents of the city, who have their tales of their experiences in the town, mostly about love. While it was initially boring (and I can see others thinking the same), it sets up the second part that’s a pure fictional piece that resembles some of the stories we’ve heard before. Kim Sae-byuk and Iwase Ryo fall for each other but Kim Sae-byuk has to return to Korea, return to her unhappy relationship, leading to one of the saddest goodbye kisses you can see in indie cinema.

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