Reviews

A sad but touching story

I wanted to watch this movie because I’m into forbidden love tropes and the setting seemed quite original. However, more than a love story, this is a short movie depicting a man’s lifelong journey dealing with the grief of losing the love of his life and the guilt he feels about it, which leads him to make a trip to “The tunnel of love” hoping to see her again (in this life or the other from what I understood). The ending is kinda open and the movie itself is a bit trippy, so it’s hard to tell what’s happening in real life and what might be in the ML’s head.

Overall I enjoyed it, the cast did a good job portraying the characters’ emotions and I liked the forest setting (not sure if they really filmed this in Ukraine, but the place does exist). I’d recommend it for one of those days you just wanna watch a slow-paced emotional kind of story that only the Japanese know how to do :,)

(Thanks again to rjgman56 for subbing this!)

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Ice Bar delivers a nostalgic, joyful story that goes down like a soothing ice bar on a hot summer day.

Enthusiastic ten-year-old Young Rae and his single mother struggle to make ends meet in 1960's Korea. His mother sells smuggled cosmetics and gets into fights using most of her money on fines and not on Young Rae's tuition. Young Rae is often the target of harassment because he's a fatherless "brat" though he can give as good as gets. His best friend, Dong Su, is an orphan who hustles to make money anyway he can, and during the summer it's selling ice bars. The summer starts off with a bang when Young Rae hears his mom's drunk best friend tell him that his father is not dead, but alive and well in Seoul. His mother denies it, but Young Rae determines to make enough money to take the train to Seoul. Dong Su hooks him up with a job selling ice bars through his shady boss at the factory and that's when the fun begins. Young Rae struggles with ice bar turf wars and bullies and written and unwritten rules about where he can and can't sell. Finally, with some help from Dong Su and a young man, In Bak, the son of a "commie", who works at the factory he starts to figure out how to successfully sell the frozen treats.

The boys get into and out trouble, with no severe consequences for the most part. The biggest hurdle for Young Rae aside from earning the money is his mother who is firmly against him finding his father for fear he will take her son away from her.

Ice Bar is a lighthearted comedy that occasionally dips its toe into melodrama only to rise to a bubbly surface once again.
Park Ji Bin's bright performance as the young entrepreneur was the heart and soul of this film. His laughter and tears were infectious and touching. Future ahjumma Shin Ae Ra as his mother managed to turn what could have been a shrewish role into a sympathetic one, never letting you doubt her love and devotion for her son.

The pace of the story kept the events moving forward, tying together small side stories in aid of Young Rae's goal. Much of the action was child high, taking us on their adventures running through the streets and down to the train station. There was a real feeling of community among the regulars in the scenes as they interacted with the boys. Certain sets could feel artificial, but the characters' interactions made up for the almost play like settings.

Though a largely child friendly film, told through Young Rae's eyes, it does have the typical bullying and hitting so many older Korean movies and dramas have. There is also a disturbing incident in the last quarter of the film. Despite those detriments, Ice Bar is a feel-good movie with an effervescent score and delightful performances. Though narrow in scope, it's big in heart.
If the ending felt a bit contrived, that's okay, ice bars during childhood summers are meant to be enjoyed and not suffered through.

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Your knowledge is thin like a piece of paper...

Avalanche does not involve snow and ice, but it does signify the disaster one arrogant man brings down upon himself.

Goro is the spoiled child of a rich family, self-centered, entitled, and thinks he is much smarter than he is. He's been married for a year to sweet, obedient, traditional Fukiko and he is already bored. Goro is in love with Yayoi and wants to divorce Fukiko to marry her. His father puts his foot down and tells him he has responsibilities as a married man to his wife and society. Yayoi, the object of his affection, wants to be with Goro yet also feels guilty. Goro has no such compassion for his wife or feelings of guilt. Like a petulant child Goro wants what he wants now without caring how his actions will affect others. Father and son continually argue about duty and desire.

Avalanche can be a difficult film to watch, regardless of how you feel about infidelity. Goro is a selfish protagonist with no redeeming qualities. Even if you start to feel sorry for his situation, by the end of the film, he will have wiped it all away in a particularly dark moment.

I've been conflicted on how to rate this film. It is well made. The scenes flow easily into one another. Unlike some older movies where the action takes place within a couple of sets and the characters are static, Avalanche's scenes are fluid. The characters hold conversations while walking in a forest, in town or naturally in the home. Conversations involving the father tend to be smart and on point more often than not as the father realizes how vacuously empty his son is of any morals. It is obvious the director is contrasting the old and the new as well. The house is Western in design and furnishings. Fukiko dresses as a traditional Japanese married woman, whereas the men and Yayoi are in Western clothes at all times. Father and son eat in a Western style restaurant. Two generations and two different cultural attitudes clash at every moment.

The problem I have with the movie if I try to view it as a character study is that none of the characters grows or have much depth to them. Fukiko is devoid of personality and obedient unto death. Goro thinks only of himself. The trigger for a disastrous emotional release occurs when his father tries to reign him in with the threat of being disowned. As Goro's father tells him, he wouldn't go down this path if he didn't have the cushion of a wealthy family to land and rely on. Yayoi is caught up in Goro's avalanche, unable to extricate herself even though she is aware the price to be paid in society for their actions. Yet even she begins to believe Goro that to be happy one has to ignore the pain it causes others. Before the film ends, Goro steps beyond being merely disdainful and pitiless, to evil. At that point the film falters as it does not bring about a satisfactory or even comprehensible ending. With all the dialogue and inner thoughts this film encompassed, it lacked the few sentences which might have made the last actions understandable to the character and the audience.

The father compared Goro's thoughts to being as thin as paper. Too often the characters came across thinly drawn as well. In the end, it was hard to care about any of the main players. Whether motivated by love or desire, their actions or inactions brought down an avalanche upon them, leaving none of them unscathed or particularly sympathetic. In the end, Avalanche plummeted into a crevice with me, offering neither character development nor emotional release.

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even the most optimistic ones can lose their senses

Aghh, I love this movie so much.

It reminds me a bit of the American movie, Five Feet Apart, in regard to the romantic aspect of the series and dealing with serious illness. This movie is much more nuanced, much more impactful IMO than the more commercialized and melodramatic Five Feet Apart. Still, I found myself making a few comparisons. Like Stella, Ma Xiao Yuan is bubbly, persistent, and charismatic. She seems unwavering and diligent in her pursuit of life and happiness over her sickness and she makes it her mission to spread this sunshine to our little dark cloud, Wei Yi Hang (Jackson Yee), who's all but given up on living and just exists to exist. Her persistence in shedding the melancholia from his shoulders gravitates the two together, and we're given a glimpse of their budding, youthful romance amidst such a serious and bleak undertow.

Their chemistry is cute and youthful, I adore Jackson Yee and just came off of his brilliant (and not to ever be understated) performance in Better Days, and he's just as captivating in this; albeit a little dorky with that haircut. I hope he never does a series or movie with a voice dub-over because I truly love his voice and its slight guttery rasp. It's also really nice to see Jackon Yee's bright smile - the roles I've seen him in most recently (Better Days and The Longest Day in Chang'an) were both roles he had to play with relative stoicism or street grit, so the smiles were few and far between, and never full.
Liu Hao Cun plays her role wonderfully, and I find her efforts as Xiao Yuan to make Yi Hang smile adorable and creative. I had the biggest grin on my face throughout her "world tour guide" scene where she created "different places" from around the world with the help of her friends for him to experience since he can't travel.

"Dancing in the crowd, I felt the joy of being normal for the first time. Growing old like everyone else no longer seems a distant dream."

Watching Yi Hang's family endure his illness deeply affected me. My family went through a similar situation when my older sister was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer when she was only 28 years old. The juxtaposition is shown well here; between the internal agony we felt in waiting for results and waiting for symptoms to worsen or get better; and the feral need to lighten the mood and smile like we could rise above the pain if we laughed hard enough. It was our own personal hell. A purgatory of waiting, uncertainty, unbridled love for her, and unhinged agony of invasive thoughts about her not getting better. Yi Hang's family is barely holding on and they're spread thin to keep the ground from falling beneath them, while also trying to maintain smiles on their faces for their son they love more than anything. It's such a hard balance to teeter, and this movie handles it eloquently. I feel so deeply for his parent's pain, and I also empathize with Yi Hang's grief and anger in feeling like a burden to his family.

"[...], the guy who's always joking around, who's always acting like a child, seems to have turned into a tortured father overnight."

This movie was cathartic, and moving, and left me with a feeling of appreciation for what I have and what I've lost.

"Everyone in life experiences losses, which we're all afraid of. Yet, when it happens, the most powerful weapon against it is to live each moment to the fullest."

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"You Have The Right To Remain Silent...But If You Do, You're A Dead Man."

Part of the "My Sassy Girl Trilogy" by Kwak Jae Yong

This is the second movie of the "My Sassy Girl Trilogy" by director/screenwriter Kwak Jae Young.

The first movie is My Sassy Girl (2001).

The second movie is the film Windstruck (2004).

The third movie is Cyborg She (2008), a Japanese movie.

They are unrelated except for having a 'sassy girl' theme

Kwak Jae Yong served as screenwriter & director for all three above films.

The main male lead for My Sassy Girl, Cha Tae Hyun, appears in a bit part in this movie.

"Windstruck is a comedy/romance/drama/fairy tale/

I had White Valentine (1999) recommended to me: my late fiance was into Asian movies and knew that White Valentine was available online with English subtitles (She introduced me to My Little Bride (Moon Geun Young) and saw all the movies she had with English subtitles. After that list dried up, my fiance started me on White Valentine, with Jun Ji Hyun, a great little sleeper so I started on her list of movies then.


Movies do not have to be "real", as in everything in a scene being scientifically possible or probable! They are made, and should be viewed, with your imagination and mind being allowed to wander. That is why this review is longer than my normal movie review.

There has been so much written about how you cannot ride a large balloon through the sky without being killed; this is a 'fairy tale' about the love of two people: a 'sassy' girl and a physics teacher. It is not supposed to be 'real' in its being told! No police officer in real life would do, or even TRY TO DO what Officer Yeo Kyung Jin did in this movie: they would be kicked off the police force if they did survive the gun battles portrayed in this movie!

When "My Sassy Girl" came out, every high school and college girl "wanted" to be "The Girl"; but being "The Girl' would turn many guys off, especially wearing a female's high heels shoes! Like "Windstruck" it made females believe in themselves and it drew woman back, year after year, watching a 'sassy' girl in control of her life!

It is a feel-good movie which people watch over, and over, and over and ....well, you get the picture!Women, and even men, go from laughing until they cry, then crying in the next part and wanting to enter the movie and change the story!

This is one of the cutest movies from Korea! I saw it about ten years ago for the first time, as I was going up the movies list of Jun Ji Hyun, starting with a chance reference to her "White Valentine."

The first part is very comical and you will be sh*tting in your pants and rolling on the floor from the hijinx of Police Officer Yeo Kyung Jin (Jun Ji Hyun) who accidentally "bumps" into all-girl school physics teacher Myung Woo (Jang Hyuk), who is doing his 'Boy Scout' duty by trying to catch a purse thief (Kim Young Joo) running ahead of him.

Yeo Kyung Jin, as it turns out later, bumbles this case as she does most other cases she is involved in during the first half of this romantic-comedy movie; but she finds a 'boyfriend' this time out of her 'bumbling'!

That is in line with the "sassy girl' motif that My Sassy Girl, Windstruck and Cyborg She have in common! This is a movie, not a documentary of hos police are 'supposed' to run things when they are on the beat... it is 'make-believe" so quit comparing "Officer" Yeo Kyung Jin with a REAL police officer! It is a comedy like the Mr Bean character from England.

The second half leads into a more drama-comedy, as a major mishap ends her romantic relationship she just found; she spends months in grief and second-guessing herself, until a miracle happens to reconnect her with her Significant Other.

Coming from a Religious Studies and former EMT (ambulance) background, many have said that Yeo Kyung Jin "cried too much" when Myung Woo dies: Russell Friedman and John W. James of The Grief Recovery Institute will tell you that whether you’ve known your partner a few months or been married for 50 years, when your significant other dies, it may feel like part of you is gone too. It can have severe psychological and/or physical attributes on a person.

The death of a loved one can lead to a stroke, heart attack or even death (without using a weapon!).

The director does not say how long that the new couple were together before Myung Woo died; In the first of the trilogy (MSG), it was at least 4-5 years between the time the two main cast members did not see each other after planting the letters under the tree.

"Death" affects each person in different ways, so I personally saw no problem with Yeo Kyung Jin's crying as much as she did!

Also, too many people keep talking about this movie being a 'prequel' to MSG: it is not! Quit thinking that way.

Kwak Jae Yong in this movie used flashbacks, story and scene repetitions from MSG to elicit an emotional response to the movie; he also used scene repetitions (first and last commentary) to link the beginning and the end of the movie together, and he did it brilliantly! I loved it so much..a stroke of genius on his part!

If you have never seen MSG, you can enjoy this movie and all of its ups and downs and its emotional roller-coaster ride without ever have seen MSG before.

There is talk online about 'Windstruck' being 'two different movies edited together': that also is false!

The first part is about the meeting and pairing of the two love birds; the second is the death of one and the recovery of the other; EVERYONE has lost a significant other and gone through the agony of recovery, one way or the other. If and when one of your loved ones die, you too can have your world tuned upside down in an instant!

Plot Twists...You will enjoy the movie more if you pay attention to:

Officer Yeo Kyung Jin as she is waking up and stretching the morning after (still) being handcuffed to Myung Woo...

Officer Yeo Kyung Jin having a man "get down" and squat so she can go over the wall in one of the chases...

Watch for the parts of [Assistant Inspector] Kim Yeong Ho (Kim Jeong Tae) in this movie: he has a major contribution to the story.

The main male/female characters are really great here: they interact like they were a real couple!

The support cast also did an excellent job at making the main and side story believable, supporting the main cast and the story excellently.

This movie, alth9ught many do not see it as that good, does what any GREAT movie does: it makes people laugh, cry, wince, say "WTF" to something that happens out of the ordinary! That why I was so surprised at all the negative reviews on MDL.

There are several copies pf "Windstruck" online, and each one has counted MILIIONS of views: that in itself should tel you what great of a movie this is!

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Dark mood

I've just spent 1h30 imagining myself killing people left and right...
Now it's over, and i'm in a crazy fool mood,
Here's the kind of story this is.
If you enjoy bisounours and wanna have faith in the goodness of the human race, never watch this.

Now for my review...

The music, sound effects, work for me.
It's dark, it suits the movie's story.

The visuals are very good, the red dress kicking ass FL thematic is super effective.
The action scenes are very well done.

The acting is excellent(special mention for Park Se Wan).

The story works as intended. You will support the lead, hate the vilains, and wish for a good ending.
But the FL finds her targets so easily sometimes that it's not always credible.
Some parts of the movie are a bit weird or rush, exemple: the link between the neighbors and the last villain.

Overall, i will give this movie a very good rating, yet there will be no rewatch.
It will take me some time to digest it.

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The 3rd act is the best part

Personally, I am meh about the romance. My favourite part is the 3rd act when the Carp Fairy and Peony finally meet and the drama that ensues from nobody being able to tell them apart. And the Carp Fairy was the only character in disguise as someone else! *metaphorically ate egg tarts while watching that play out*

Unlike practically every other story involving an imposer of some sort, the virtuous Carp Fairy, though an imposter Peony, did not befall a tragic end.

1960s CGI technology may not be at the level of the 2020s, but most of the physical effects were pretty cool.

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Most 2007 teenager sad love story

Back the day, I became the fans of Haruma Miura because my bestie almost dragged me to watch Haruma Miura's drama. I have watched it in 2012.
Story? This is typical teenager love story with soft and calm cinematography. The story is simple actually. The FL fell in love to the ML. The FL is favorable clever smart student and daughter, meanwhile the ML is strange, considered rebel student and Son. FL fall in love first to the ML but the ML is very cool and little mean to her.
Finally they dated and FL is pregnant with their baby. But something happened. ENOUGH FOR THE SPOILER.
The story is happy and sad.
I shed my tears watching this movie. I have rewatched until 3 times.
The acting of Haruma Miura is unquestionable. He is the shine stars since the early of career. For Aragaki Yui, she is very suit to be Mika. She is very soft, pretty, and simple. Her sorrowful acting undoubtfull make me sad too.
The cinematography of Koizora film is the best, with cloudy mood but I can feel healing watching the movie.

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Touching, progressive and informative

This movie is the type to shoot an arrow straight thru the heart, some people will watch this and think, oh a story about the struggles of a person with a trans identity, and do not get me wrong it does show a pretty clear depiction of the day to day struggles as well as part of the journey of a trans woman, the strength in this movie is its portrayal of motherhood and family as no one seemed to react when Tomo was living with her negligent, slightly alcoholic biological mother but put her together with a trans woman and suddenly people seem to care...

I loved the family moments, the struggles the over protective mother and the great palett of motherhood showed here, what makes a good mother? what makes a family? I also loved how it showed realistic ways to deal with life outside the norm as well how relatable the characters are.

The show does a great job showing both the struggles and pain a child may face due to grownups %&€%#& €%#%#% "€("€("#B"##€="#€"€("=#(%"(%". Including neglect, bullying and loss of strength to live without neglecting the strong hold parents have on their children.

I am a little bit disappointed they casted a cis man as Rinko, he did do a good job portraying her but it would have been better if a tans woman or woman would have been casted to play this role. However I do not know much about the industry in Japan but in a better wold that will be done.

I have seen that some people complained about the obsession with boobs, however I think those matter more than many people think as they are clear markers and what most people notice first. "Imagine being a girl but never getting boobs".

I also love the humour here and there, there is a lot of funny kick up moments, family fun and so much love in this movie it is hard not to fall for the characters.

Definitely a movie I strongly recommend to all...

Story that needs to be told: 10
Bring out your anger towards society: 10
Family: 10
Exitment: medium

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More BYUN YO HAN PLEASE

Lol I think my slump is making me rate things higher xD
So the good:
Byun Yo Han as a 1st ML
Byun Yo Han with long hair and a beard
Byun Yo Han action scenes
Byun Yo Han and Won Jin Ah as a married couple
The story and development did keep me engaged

The bad:
Short yet long
The last fighting scene got too comical
I actually wished for more undercover activities
It was kinda like squid game cop guy's pov, not much depth and too much "action"
Like I wished for the MLs to form a bond so the betrayal got deeper
I did not hate BYH not turning evil to be undercover but I also would've liked a bit more, it all felt like it happened in 2 days

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A silly movie that takes itself way too seriously

This movie did everything wrong. For example:

-Canons shoot at wall once, it's enough to crumble it. WRONG! It takes many days of bombarding a single section of wall to collapse it. The movie had such an opportunity to portray what it is like to be under constant bombardment, and didn't take it.
-A single breach is portrayed as a big deal. WRONG! A single breach is a bottleneck that's disastrous for the attacker more than the defender.
-No one is fighting or marching in any sort of formation, ever. Soldiers march in a loose group of rifles, crossbowmen, spearmen and swordsmen.
-Even when cavalry charges at them, the rifles stay at front, and at no point are replaced by pikemen/spearmen. Could it be that koreans were so stupid that they didn't know pike and shoot formations in 1630's? Is this what this movie is saying?
-Somehow, everyone hears the officer shouting orders in the middle of the battle.
-Armor is like paper.
-Most footsoldiers are armed with swords, not polearms.
-They send the blacksmith on a suicidal mission. Why the blacksmith? The movie also implies he was the only blacksmith the fortress had.
-Little is shown from the perspective of common soldiers. It's just constant back and forth between the king and his one-dimensional advisors. Also, very funny how the advisors can echo the words their representative said in unison. Did they practice for it?
-The movie shows from the very beginning that the plan to defend that fortress was always a VERY BAD IDEA. It's underlined at every possible moment, to the point it's silly. It makes everyone who decided to defend despite such overwhelming odds look like a suicidal imbecile.
-Thus, when they finally surrender, the scene of king sloooowly prostrating himself before the Khan is not sad nor tragic nor melodramatic. It's just silly. It was the obvious outcome. And if it wasn't supposed to be obvious, the movie made no effort in portraying that, we weren't given any clue, any number, any ray of hope that maybe the idea to defend wasn't so bad after all.
-At the end of the movie, the conservative proponent of defence says "things will change for the better only when we all pass, and king passes, and kingdom passes, and all old things pass away....". Yeee, just drop feudalism and install democracy already. That's totally what a noble in 17th-century korea would have said.

And probably more, but whatever. It's a bad movie, it lacks historical authenticity, and fails to makes us care about the conflict portrayed. You cheer for the antagonists, but probably because you don't see them enough to witness them doing dumb and illogical things like the main characters do.

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Some things are better left unseen, indeed.

I am a huge fan of horror movies, especially Asian horror movie production is my favourite and my friends don't want to watch any horror movies with me since Kairo (2001), which I honestly understand. So you can imagine I was excited for this movie, been seeing posts about how this movie ranked #1 few times, how creepy it is... Well, I was quite dissapointed.

N O T S P O I L E R F R E E / N O M A J O R S P O I L E R S

Kar Mun lost her vision when she was little, spending years living in a haze, not knowing how her own face looks like. Now at 18yo she got a chance to have her vision repaired with corneal transplantation, risky, yet in the end succesful and she can start learning to recognize things not by touch, smell or sound, but by looking at them. Kar Mun is ready to see all the beautiful things this world has to offer, except she starts seeing thing in the corner of her eye, figures that no one else sees or can talk to. It's quite maddening experience for someone, who just got back their sight, so she decides to look into who donated the cornea to her. Hopefully that would explain what is happening to her...

I definitely liked the gloomy atmosphere, the dark and grim colour palette, some of the shots were pretty good and you could feel how the heroin was slowly sinking into despair. Unfortunatelly the movie tried too hard to deliver some jump scares, scary scenes weren't working for me, because I could tell what to expect. The creepiest shot was the ghost lady with her kid standing at the restaurant, licking the meat, that gave me the ick, other than that... Won't probably even watch the rest of this saga. The concept is good, but I would rather invest my time into something else.

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Movie adaptations just don't work for Jigoku Shoujo.

As someone, who's seen complete Jigoku Shoujo the anime series and is ready to read the manga, I feel like a movie adaptation just doesn't do any of the characters justice. TV series would have more space to introduce everyone properly and imerse you more in the story. Which this movie is honestly lacking and I'm not sure who should be the target audience, but about that later.

N O T S P O I L E R F R E E / N O M A J O R S P O I L E R S

Did you ever felt hatered so strong, held such a powerful grudge, that you would be able to curse someone for hell? What if I tell you there's something called Hell Correspondence, that only those filled with anger and pain can access when the clock strikes midnight? Would you do it, would you send someone to hell? Not for free of course, it would cost you your soul. You will get to live your life in peace, but once you die, your soul will also go to hell, because once you curse someone, the curse will come back right to you.

Sometimes pain makes us do irrational things and it's quite easy to be blinded by our emotions. And once the rumor about Hell Correspondence brokes out and becames a urban legends, you can be sure there will be someone, who will try to access the page once midnigh comes. Mikuriya Sanae is one of those people. Scared for life after her attacker slashes her face with a kitchen knife and mocks her in his apology letter, she decides to make a deal with Enma to take him to hell, cursing herself with the same fate. On the other hand, Ichikawa Miho makes deal with Enma to save her friend from being sacrificed by popular male idol in live show...

Okay, so, what we got - brief introduction to how Hell Correspondence works, no lore, no history background, no other explanation about Enma Ai and her team, their reasoning and how this whole thing works, what all they can do and how the hell works, because for everyone hell looks differently. So the most interesting things were left out.

Enma Ai was actually my biggest disapointment, her character felt bland, ghost like (which she isn't) and not creepy enough. The flower animation for when she took people to hell was quite nice, but I honestly missed the bell on her bracelet ringing when she did that, and Wanyuudou as the carriage that takes you to hell. I also have to wonder why none of the Hell's Correspondence client weren't given the chest tattoo as symbol of closing the deal with Enma. I guess it didn't suit any purpose in this story, in anime it was rather important detail.

Overal this movie was lacking any characters that you could feel for, except for Kudo, but yeah, he also doesn't get to live for long. No good soundtrack, no background that makes Jigoku Shoujo interesting, just B grade movie that I feel will piss of fans of this series and confuse people that never heard of the original. Unfortunatelly live actions will always have problem to uplive to their ancestors.

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