Amatonormativity from the perspective of someone who has no desire for romance or sex
I had my eye on this movie for a while and was super happy to find out that this was shown at a Japanese film festival (where the title for this movie was 'I Am What I Am' and completely sold out!). So of course I went to see it and I ended up loving it. So here's my review.In order to give a good review I must first explain 3 words that some people might be familiar with, but may be new to a lot of you.
1. Amatonormativity: the widespread assumption that everyone is better off in an exclusive, romantic, long-term coupled relationship, and that everyone is seeking such a relationship. - a term coined by Elizabeth Brake.
2. Asexuality (also, ace): a label for a sexual orientation that describes people who experience little to no sexual attraction.
3. Aromantic (also, aro): a label for a romantic orientation that describes people who expeirence little to no romantic attraction.
This is a movie that - at its core - is about amatonormativity. It shows how it can harm anyone, but particularly those who are aro and/or ace. The Kasumi, main character of this movie, is aromantic and asexual (aroace) and values her friends and family. However, it seems like everyone around her is more focused on romance and tries to push that on her.
What the movie does really well is showing how people may have very different reactions when coming into contact with someone who is aroace and genuinely does not have any desire for sex or a romantic relationship.
As someone who is aroace, I appreciated that they never made Kasumi doubt her identity. Throughout the movie it is very clear that she knows that she is aroace, that she is happy with who she is (it's just that she wishes other people would accept her for who she is as well).
I reccomend this movie to everyone.
To those who are not aro and/or ace themselves, I recommend it because it can be an eye opener to see how focused society is on romance. It is not always a bad thing, but it is good to be aware of it, especially if you or someone close to you maybe is not interested in romance for now, or ever. To know that without romance, someone can live a life just as fulfilling and happy.
& To aro and/or ace people, I reccomend it because - even if your life has been very different from Kasumi- it is likely that you'll watch some of these scenes and relate to it on a personal level because something similar has happened to you. I teared up at some moments because I have been in (almost exactly) the same situation as some scenes. Watching it on the big screen, it was both painful, frustrating and like a relief because it felt like being seen and recognised.
It is wonderful that this movie further spreads awareness of asexuality and aromanticism.
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Kickass women
Loved this - I know there's been countless comparison to John Wicks but so what? You don't watch these kinds of movies for the intellectual content and the revenge/action theme has been around long before JW. I loved both mother and daughter being 'true to themselves'. It's a refreshing change to see Kickass women doing it for themselves, especially in KDrama.The ending was a positive affirmation of self identity and not giving in to peer pressure to make life easy. I'd love to see a second part.
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1Better Upon 2nd Viewing.
Updated Jan 2024. I watched this again knowing that I had found both characters really unlikable the first time, and was actually able to appreciate the story more. So I've raised my rating from a 4.5 to a 6.5.While both characters are morally dark grey (cheating and coercion/dub-con/stalking), Otomo does have character growth. The changes are incremental and very subtle until the end when his actions suddenly make the extent of his internal growth obvious. Upon second viewing, I was able to empathize with his character a lot sooner (40min before the ending instead of 7min before).
Imagase, on the other hand, has no growth and is not fleshed out. He was just as 2-dimensional in my second viewing as he was in the first. Also, it's hard *not* to feel like whatever misery he feels, he brought upon himself (multiple times). He may be kind of pitiable, but I still struggled to sympathize with him because he was just one thing on repeat: an obsessed gay man who was very insecure about his straight friend/lover whom he kept pushing into an intimate relationship.
The way Imagase is written remains my biggest dissatisfaction with the film.
As with the first viewing, I was not that invested in the characters because, first, they aren't likeable, and second, because their connection lacks depth and affection (there doesn't seem much reason for them to like each other except for maybe being able to be comfortable around each other, which isn't nothing, but there's not a lot of that shown either). However, already knowing what I didn't like about it, I found the second viewing more mentally intriguing and enjoyable, and was able to better appreciate how the cornered mouse metaphor came into play throughout the story.
Another thing I was able to roll with better the second time around was the very loose sense of time. The movie somewhat disjointedly jumps from scene to scene and exact markers of time (days, weeks, etc) are never mentioned. Knowing where the story was going allowed me to string things together in my head. For the first watch, it was like reading a book with chunks of pages torn out at random; I could piece the story together, but it felt like multiple scenes were missing.
The sex is very realistic and the atmosphere created with light, colors, and cinematography was very well done and cohesive.
GENERAL SPOILER On The Ending:
......
It is an open ending, but I think the pattern of what will happen is pretty clear, only this time there's more hope for stability in it. The only thing left in question, in my mind, is when.
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"어른들은 진짜 왜 어러냐?"
I successfully forgot all the childhood mishaps not to be reminded here of those..?😅I acknowledge the hard work put in this movie and the difficulty directing child actors, but I feel like the whole point of the story is to whimper about old traumas and how bad is everyone around. There aren't really any characters who offer strong positive connection with the leads.
This story was written from the position of the weak, and doesn't try to understand the problem of growing up from any other side. I'm sorry, but the debut feature of the director Yoon Ga Eun is immature. It was relatable sometimes, yes, but exhausted itself by the middle. Not to mention the cinematography - there were some overexposed shots. I will watch The House of Us next and hope it's more skillfully made.
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A bunch of misfits trying their best at football: enjoyable for its last third but forgettable
This sport movie takes an interesting angle tackling on a quite unknown (at least to me) event "The Homeless International World Cup", which is apparently an annual international football event. Even though I found the premise of the film quite engaging, it certainly did not gain me immediately over. Indeed, the tone of the story was almost too comedic / satirical at first making it difficult for me to get emotionally invested in the characters. However, the last third of the movie makes it up and is pretty great with a couple of tear inducing moments.The cast (and more specifically the two main roles played by Park Seo Joon and IU) was what drove me to watch this. I am clearly satisfied by their performances but it is is for sure not their best and most memorable work. Especially for IU, her role was too subdue to really offer her a lot opportunities to shine. Park Seo Joon has a little more room to play as his character is much more dominant to the storyline. Overall the ensemble cast did a commendable job bringing the story to life despite the writing flaws.
The filmmaking was very good: all the football sequences were rather compelling to follow as well as the more slice-of-life moments. I enjoyed the bright and colourful atmosphere as well as the soundtrack, not unforgettable but pleasant while watching the film.
I would recommend this movie to people that are looking for a different kind of sport movie. If you are fan of one of the actors / actresses, it is worth giving it a shot. Rather than really being about football, it is much more slice-of-life with a lot of misfits characters trying their best all together.
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I like pinoy movies
I definitely do not recommend this film to local critics, don't waste your time, definitely watch something else, because the camera work, especially in the first short story, is amateurish. But maybe it was on purpose. But that doesn't mean that I agree with the fact that someone's evaluation slips only into Buran homophobia, then the film is not evaluated as such, but an attitude towards something completely different. But for me, the film has its charm, above all in the fact that here I feel the pursuit of humanity, simplicity, the search for truth, what I like about Pinoy films, even if they do not reach the sky, the fact that Filipinos are open in the field of sexuality and above all, what I was very surprised about, several human truths appear in the translation, and I also appreciate that. I will definitely return to the film sometime and it was translated into Czech in the Czech Republic...Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Convoluted movie with mostly subpar acting
The story is convoluted at best, while the stakes are pretty clear from the start, there is no indication on how to change things. so the whole movie is basically about following the life of a couple of humans during a particular point in time.All in all given the subject theme, the movie is pretty boring.
-minor spoiler from here-
Also some story beats really dont make sense to include, there is a girl who has obviously been bullied at her former school, and the movie shows that she is still bullied in her new school, that plot takes a substantial part of the movie, but neither is it resolved nor does it impact the story further in any way. while the girl seems to be super integral (if i understood the movie correctly) for the ending, she is just a deus ex machina with no further function.
the reason why the villans do what they do is also only adressed in one sentence and basically amounts to 'humans are evil the world needs to end'.
---spoiler end--
at least the actress is super pretty, sadly she only has screentime in the first story for the first 10 minutes or so.
all in all, cant recommend, waste of time
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saket
An oath of silence
My feelings swore to
Not to be spoken of again
But I like to think you too, keep quiet
I'll never shout it out to the world
That I feel a certain way
But I don't want things to change
I swore to the heavens
I swore to the sea
I swore that I'd make you
Stay with me
An oath of silence
I swore to myself
It makes me all the more confused
Picture perfect agreement
I,
I wasn't sure you understood
That I feel a certain way
But I don't want things to change
I swore to the heavens
I swore to the sea
I swore that I would make you
Stay with me
I swore to the mountains
I swore to the trees
I swore that I'd set you
Set you free
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"It takes time to get used to things"
Chungking Express is more a mood than a story, more style than substance but an entertaining and colorful watch. Lonely and heartbroken people brush up to the edge of madness as they look for love or try to reclaim it. Lives touch briefly with unexpected outcomes.In the first short story, Officer #223 is attempting to win back his girlfriend May, unable to move on. Most evenings he hangs out at the snack bar using the pay phone to try and get in touch with her through relatives and friends. Each day he purchases a can of pineapple with the expiration date of May 1, coincidentally his birthday, and vows after eating thirty of them if she hasn't come back, he will move on. His love lines cross paths with Brigitte Lin's Blonde Wig Woman who is a drug dealer and smuggler who has been double-crossed by the trafficking mules she has prepared.
The whole May 1 expiration date bit was too on the nose, feeling more and more contrived as the bit went along. Brigitte Lin in sunglasses, a trench coat and armed with a gun was at least interesting. It took a while to care about a guy who couldn't get over being dumped. Brigitte Lin's drug dealer, who was never given a name, was more compelling. I eventually began to vibe with this strange emotional bump in the night. At least it got #223 to stop talking about pineapples. "Do you like pineapples?" Yeah, that's a player move. I honestly would have loved to see this relationship play out with both people on opposite sides of the law.
My interest perked up with the second story when Tony Leung looking sexy in a police officer uniform entered the scene. Officer #663 was also nursing a broken heart after his flight attendant girlfriend soared away for new sexual adventures. Faye, the new worker at the snack bar took an instant liking to him. When his girlfriend's letter with the apartment keys ends up in her hands, the movie nosedived for me. Using the keys from the envelope, Faye began breaking in to #663's apartment every day-cleaning, buying new bedding and decorations, restocking items, and generally making herself at home. #663 with his keen observation skills carefully honed by his years as a cop never noticed the differences. He had a habit of psychoanalyzing his soap and dish towel and thought the soap was just getting fat because it couldn't move on from his ex.
Maybe it's a male fantasy that an invisible woman will clean, decorate, and restock their apartment like little cookie elves but if the roles were reversed instead of quirky, we'd find it creepy. A male character hanging out all day uninvited sniffing a woman's things and making himself at home would be stalkerish and not romantic. I quickly lost interest in this story. And as much as I love the Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreamin'"after hearing it for nearly 45 minutes, I'm not going to want to hear it for another decade.
The frozen action overlaid with sped up action, swirly camera action and stop motion running was a director's creativity on overload especially when dazzling colorful lights joined the artistic fray. As I said, this was all about the mood. Different people will see this film through their own expectations. Character development and story resolution were beside the point. How did it make you feel watching the lonely people connecting amid the kaleidoscope of lights?
Rather than being romantic, the stories showed just how desperate some people are for companionship and will latch onto the first person who pays any attention to them. With the exception of maybe the drug dealer, the rest of the characters seemed to being hanging onto their sanity by a thread. Were they lonely because their behavior ran people off or were they behaving strangely because they were lonely? Chungking Express was visually impressive, the narrative-not so much.
9/29/23
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Discover the right path to the solution
Well originally I thought this was a Korean rewrite of the original movie "Finding Forrester". In that movie it was about bitter old man who lost his brother and was considered a literary genius. He befriends a young man with huge potential but an education system that wants to just use him for what they need him for and the main bad guy is a stuck up literature teacher who was a failure in every sense of the word. Needless to say both stories are virtually identical in general plot the writers of "In Our Prime" ended up changing literature to math but essentially had the same story. But I will say that the Korean movie tended to show how the Korean education system seems to value getting money from "rich" people instead of actually wanting to teach students to strive for personal goals and achievements. It's sad that the educators in this movie wanted to cover up a scandal that essentially made them all accessories to the facts but they were too concerned about saving face and would actually throw an actual "poor" student underneath the proverbial bus because it was easier than to actually set an example to the students and tell the truth. The 3 main characters were amazing actors I'm not familiar with of them except for the actor who played the North Korean defector. Even with the pain and sadness when he thought of what he had taught the student he came back with courage and ended up finding a new path and a new life. Excellent movie. A little sad that I've seen so many Korean movies that seem to make their education system seem very corrupt and dishonest.Was this review helpful to you?
Good story but not that scary
If you are fan of horror movies with different stories, you must watch this. It's a good movie as all of the stories showed how each stories of each characters are connected and related to each other. It's not that scary for me but I would say that this movie has a good story and it is well made. It's not confusing which I like the most. And also even though I did not got scared while watching, I really liked the acting of the casts. They are really immersed with their characters and I could really feel and get the messages with their acting. I don't know why I just got to know and watch this movie but it's worth to watch.Was this review helpful to you?
Creation of the Gods Ⅰ: Kingdom of Storms
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China just shows it too can make a great fantasy movie
I found out that Creation of the Gods took five years to make, and their selection of young actors to play the main characters in the movie and the training they all went through .. needless to say, drew a deep curiosity to watch the movie. I am glad to say I wasn't one bit disappointed! I am so impressed with the movie. From the brilliant acting from the old cast, the familiar cast and the young cast they all excelled and made this movie superbly entertaining! The animation is just amazing 90% of it.. not to mention the high-quality production value invested in the movie, and I was totally enamoured!! It's so real, I felt like I was watching the mythology that my mum used to tell us as our bedtime story when my siblings and I were toddlers.I have watched a few movie editions and dramas (Investiture of the Gods) and none really did the novel justice, until Creation of the Gods. This is one Chinese fantasy movie I will recommend highly for Chinese and non-Chinese alike. A word of warning though, if you are not exposed to Chinese Mythology you need to prepare yourself for a ride!
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I like historical Chinese films
I like historical Chinese films, spiced with a mystical and even fairy tale story and spiced with subtle BL relationships between the men of that time, and I want to thank you for the translation into Slovak. Here at gaytitulky.info, several such films are listed (China, Korea), but Han Zi Gao's film The Male Queen and The Untamed with a rating of 9.1 on MDL are missing here. Mermaid's Jade even boasts some minor BL scenes that I didn't even count on, apparently it got past Chinese censorship as a relationship between a minister and a mermaid (but it was a mermaid ha ha). Good acting, story a little rushed (but I don't mind at all) and a surprise ending that no one expects, with beautiful music and you can kind of guess the ending or rethink the story, which for me was the most amazing ending. For me, very beautiful, deep and I would like to watch it again sometime.Was this review helpful to you?
