Reviews

BWH&H 8: A Disappointing End

I don't know where to begin with this one. It might just be the culmination of this trilogy altogether that soured my views towards it, as it really just feels too similar to the previous two New Battles movies. But I do have to admit, there were some very odd choices with regards to story direction with this one that I can't shake days after watching. The whole weird brother/sister thing that wasn't necessary, for instance (if you know, you know). On the whole, this just seemed like it existed for the sake of it being a trilogy.

We're once again given a completely new cast of characters with many of the returning actors, and again I'm left scratching my head as to why. It almost feels as though this is a remake of the Boss' Head, as it covers most of the same beats. I also found it more difficult to follow who was who, and it just felt kind of exhausting to figure out. None of the characters stick out, and we're meant to loathe them all equally.

This weird trilogy goes out with a whimper, even though we're treated to an ending unlike we've seen before, the open-endedness of it feels like a copout. If you're going to watch all 8 films, I would say watch the first 5 back-to-back, and then space this trilogy out a bit.

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Crazy Love Story Which The Ending Story Goes Downhill

The first-half story line is fine but the second-half goes down to the bottom.

FL (June) had a few boy-friends in her school day. She might like one of her school friends (Guy) but did not know what Guy thought about her. When June grows up and meets a man (Pete) whom really loves and is very nice to her … and it seems that she does not love him as much as he does. Pete proposes and gives an engagement ring to June. June accepts and decides to stay together with Pete although they are not yet married. BUT when June meets Guy in one-day, she starts to waver to him and doubt about his feeling to her in the past, The written story reveals that they both might like or love each other back to their school-days. June and Guy can not hold their feelings and end up having a kiss in a photo booth.

Then June comes back home to talk with Pete that it is hard for her to longer stay with him and tells Pete that she is not good for him. Pete has done nothing wrong and not understand why June wants to end the relationship. While they are talking, Guy shows his SELFISH character by sending the photo of his kissing with June to Pete b/c he badly wants June to be with him. This scene, IMO, obviously portrays Guy’s unforgiven behavior in insulting June, the girl whom he loves … and June’s selfishness in thinking only about herself and NOT caring the man whom loves her so much. The kissing photo makes Pete feel upset and finally Pete and June end their relationship.

Then June decides to fly aboard to escape her guilty feeling in hurting Pete. It is so disappointing that the story does NOT show ENOUGH growth or learning for both June and Guy ….. The ending story is when June comes back and meets Guy in a party, it portrays that they both feel sad on what they had done and forgive themselves which the (opening) direction that June and Guy may start their relationship.

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Gay straight pairing ... Light BL vibes ... A good one though

As my headline suggests .. they made a gay- straight pairing. Maybe that's why there was no intimate or even a kiss scene between the leads but their chemistry was bang on!
The story moves slowly and gets interesting as it progresses.
The acting is pretty good.
The theme seems to be BL but it is light hearted comic cop story with little sadness and twist here and there.
My BL heart really wished for a different ending or atleast a final kiss between the leads to make up for the ending bcoz even though one of the lead claimed himself to be "Straight" but you can find him slowly falling for the other lead.

Anyway, overall a good movie to watch and kill time.

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TW for graphic SA

This movie was great until the ending. The ending shifts the entire film into a depressing perspective, despite the attempt at an uplifting conclusion.

There were truly no winners here and that is life, but damn! I thought Riku was being genuine when making amends, I did not expect that R scene. It is sad that Ichiyo took his own life, his mental stability fell so fast and rejection lead him to end his life. Amakami did nothing wrong... yet he suffered the most.

Again that's life. But I hate reality. 😂

In terms of acting, this was very well done. The movie itself is good, but the sad ending ruined it for me.

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This was a brain twister and deep SyFy Fantasy Movie and a must see for me.

Here is a quick Korean or Chinese drama downtime moment that will only take an hour and one half of your time, but will stick to you with afterthoughts for several days after viewing. This is the Romance Fantasy movie 0.1% World. Personally, I could loop this movie over and over and not discover all that is there to take in. 0.1% World is the story about a girl and boy living on different continents. Inexplicably, they get linked to each other’s brains. They can hear each other, talk to each other and at times even move the body parts of the other. Because they live in different time zones and on different continents, it becomes a challenge to live and fashion life under these circumstances of a mind meld. Neither one wants to know the identity of the other at first. They just need to placate the problem by learning how to live with each other, sharing lives as they do, and not get in each other’s way, until they figure out how to fix the problem. Ultimately, what does this shared experience do for them? This Chinese SyFy Fantasy movie blew my mind. It invoked such deep thought surrounding their dilemma and how they chose to resolve certain issues.

The stars of the Chinese film are Zhou Yi Ran from ‘When You Be Me’ (2022) and Patrick Shih from ‘Someday or One Day’ (2022). I recommend both works by both actors in addition to their collaboration in 0.1% World.

These two travel through Discovery, Compliance, to Discord in 0.1% World.

Actor’s Corner

Both actors give dynamic deliveries in 1% World. Taiwanese actor Patrick Shih often has been compared to Park Seo Joon by Netizens. He speaks fluent German in this movie, 0.1% World.

Zhou Yi Ran is also a great young Chinese actress. Her acting abilities and range of acting are fully on display in ‘When You Be Me’.

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A gentle, understated film about humans endlessly, fiercely screaming and clawing for love

That's exactly what this movie is to me, a silent scream, a completely inaudible roar for love and happiness - and it is absolutely, unrestrainedly, beautifully joyous.

I love nothing more than quiet, profound explorations of the human condition (forgive my use of that pretentious phrase) so I already knew I was going to like this movie, but I had no idea just how much I'd love it.
It has fantastic writing, stellar performances from the entire cast, and the editing as well as the soundtrack (or more often the lack thereof) perfectly underscore the characters and their emotions and lend the film its distinctive, quiet atmosphere that lets it tell its story so effectively.

But more importantly than all that, this movie has things to say. About being human. About being happy. About love.
And is says these things in so many tender little moments that all build up to a big thundering shout, until every frame seems to scream about reaching for joy and happiness, about the clawing fight and the simple reaching out, about what it means to love someone, anyone at all, and why it is vital for us squishy, brittle, hungry humans to experience that love as the transformative force that it is and let it makes us bigger, and stronger, and kinder. About finding beauty and care and kindness in other people and allowing them to change you, but also about the kindness of being uncompromisingly yourself.
I could spend hours waxing lyrical about the wild joys and endless griefs of being human and why media exploring those themes is so valuable, and this movie certainly gave me ample opportunity for it, but I don't think that's necessary.

All I need to say is that if you like movies with authentic, believable characters, respectful yet unflinching exploration of queer topics, and heavy themes of love and joy and forgiveness and the journey the search for these things takes each of us on, then this movie is without a doubt perfect for you.
And if that doesn't sound like it'd appeal to you, I'd encourage you to watch it anyway; genuinely. There is so much to love about this film, so many wonderful ways it could be viewed, I think you might just end up loving it for a myriad of reasons that I didn't even touch on.
This is one of those films that makes your life slightly better for having seen it, so go watch it and give it the chance to do just that.

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Ugh!

1. Yuki deserved SO much better than Akira.

2. The fact Akira randomly dumped Yuki after ELEVEN YEARS and married a whole other person for several years before taking off his clown makeup and standing up to his mother...

3. Akira literally ruined his whole life like tf?! This plot ruined the whole relationship for me. He did not have to destroy Yuki like that. 😭

4. The ending was very mixed emotions. Bittersweet and depressing. I was still reeling over the last 40 minutes of Akira throwing a grenade to his life.

5. I wanted to love this and feel like I got too caught up in my feels to enjoy the rest of this movie. 😂 He could've broken up for a couple years and been single. Accepted a job somewhere. Anything, but what he actually did. & the seven or eight years it took for them to get back together... nah nah nah NAH.

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"Something big is behind this!"

In the 1970's sexploitation was rampant and Hanzo the Razor was an excellent example of it. Despite the copious amounts of spewing blood and overall lightheartedness, the underlying theme that rape is okay and something to be enjoyed has aged badly in a world where women now have a say and are able to write critiques.

*Because of the nature of this movie, I use some male anatomical terms*

Hanzo is honorable and incorruptible, a pike in his higher up's sides as he berates them for accepting bribes. After his confrontation over oath taking Hanzo has himself tortured so that he will know how prisoners feel and then pounds his penis with a wooden stick. After that he works it out in a burlap sack filled with raw rice. When he has thoroughly exercised his third leg which had to have been at least 18inches/47cm long, seriously how did he not pass out from all his blood headed south, he stumbles across a clue that Kanbei the Killer has escaped his banishment. He frames Kanbei's lover who is now his boss' mistress for murder and hauls her in for "questioning." Omino is stripped and bound. Hanzo begins his special interrogation of Omino with his Mr. Winky, stopping intermittently so that she will answer questions and beg him to continue. He later questions another woman while she is hanging from a net giving an all new meaning to the term 'whirlibird'. She, like Omino, was sent into the throws of ecstasy from his huge and talented member and told him everything he wanted to know.

The case showed the corruption of the court and magistrate's office, but the case itself was limp. It simply gave Hanzo the opportunity to cause some spewing blood deaths and chances to interview women with his super ding-a-ling. The thing to keep in mind about the women he interrogated is that they hadn't committed any crimes. One might have been harboring a fugitive, but by that time the fugitive was dead. As much as he worked Little Hanzo out, it made me wonder how many women he questioned a week. Did he interrogate male suspects the same way? Kung fu specialists learn to pull their equipment in, but apparently in Japan it's hardened into a weapon.

Hanzo the Razor, yeah I don't think they were talking about his sword, had some humorous moments. But the utter lack of consent and warped view of rape and women overshadowed anything positive about the film. Hanzo was known to be honorable and a man who protected the people. I'm just not sure how honorable rape is.

9/19/23

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Why isn't this labelled as a comedy?

I cannot explain how frustrated I am with this movie.
I knew beforehand that it was based on true events, and by the poster, plot summary and tags, I thought that this was properly handled and portraited. However, not only the pacing was awful, and with various clichés, but in the first half they even had humorous bits?!

Think about it: it was like a movie version of Vincenzo. In this drama they also deal with serious matters in a humorous way, like their critic on chaebol's money power, but instead they replaced them with Italian mafias. However, the big difference and why it was well received, is that Vincenzo was marketed from the beginning as a comedy (amongst other genres) while Toxic wasn't. And it shouldn't have, but it was.

So, to me this is not only an insult on the victims' story, but also to the viewers' intelligence.

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A must for fans of PP Krit

I must admit that I was sad when it looked like PP Krit - after the sensational success of his collaboration with Billkin in ”My Ambulance”, ”I Told Sunset About You”, which is my favourite BL series of all times, and ”I Promised You the Moon” - was going to focus on his career as a singer. When I heard that he would be starring in the short film ”Rerun”, I was so happy, and I wasn't disappointed.

PP Krit plays Kit, the curator of arts exhibitions, who falls for Chou (Napat Siangsomboon), an artist. They find out that they have a lot in common, and Chou promises to have Kit curate his first solo exhibition. However, when he actually has his first exhibition, he has someone else curate it, and subsequently he breaks up with Kit. When they meet again, Kit pretends that he is okay, whereas Chou says that he isn't okay without Kit. This is where the movie ends, so we don't know whether the two of them get back together or not.

The entire movie breathes a mood of angst and sadness, and somehow the viewer senses that this relationship isn't going to last. The cinematography – semi-darkness in many scenes, with an indistinct sound - underlines the fragility of the leads' relationship. The production quality of this short film is very good, without even minor flaws. The movie was produced by PP Krit's company, "PP Krit Entertainment".

As a fan of PP Krit, who is my favourite BL actor, and who I would always want to protect, because he appears to be so vulnerable, I was tempted to hate Chou for dumping Kit, prioritizing his career over his love, but then Kit doesn't even try to fight for his love, and so it would seem unfair to blame everything on Chou.

Napat Siangsomboon is an experienced actor, and he displays Chou's attraction to Kit, but also his ambition as an artist, and finally his yearning for his ex-lover convincingly. PP Krit avoids being over-dramatic which the plot may have tempted a lesser talented actor to do. Whereas in the break-up scene Kit seems to be more hurt than Chou, PP Krit manages to convey in the final scene that Kit in fact is stronger than Chou. I always found it hard to imagine PP Krit being paired with another actor than Billkin, but he has obviously matured enough to move on.

This movie isn't a feelgood comedy – in fact, it's sad and angsty as I mentioned before, but it's a beautiful little piece of art that no one should miss, and of course it's a must for everyone who loves PP Krit as much as I do. The fact that the short film was watched on youtube by 200,000 viewers within 24 hours proves that it was not only me who was longing to see PP Krit again.

You find all my reviews, including those of series from countries not covered by mydramalist like Vietnam, Singapore, and Myanmar, here: https://www.wattpad.com/user/DominicKebre

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We open the film with the male lead realizing that his movie showing on love and loneliness is putting people to sleep. No one seems interested in what he has to say. Yumi, a ticket seller at the venue, mentions that it might be because there's no people - and she volunteers to act in his next film. What happens next makes reality and film bleed together in a rather beautiful manner that kept me watching. Is the new film reflecting reality? Is reality mirroring the new film? Are the two indeed different but conflated to us real-life viewers? I can't say. But it resulted in a pretty, calm, and mellow short film which I did quite enjoy. But it was definitely a more atmospheric/vibe sort of watch, rather than a story-centric sort of watch.


"Why do you shoot a movie?"
"Because it's pretty."
"Then you only film things that are pretty, do you?"
"If you care about something, then it becomes pretty."
And that does seem to be the general idea behind the film.

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Very enjoyable, great performances.

This was a great little movie. Note that it starts off in B&W, but switches to color shortly. While in large part a comedy, it deals with a few serious matters also, and does so very well. The performances of the two leads portraying each other were superb, in my opinion,...their mannerisms, vocals, and responses to different situations. Side characters were present, but not really developed much. I think this was the right call, as the time was much better spent focusing on the two main characters. I tend to really like Japanese cinema from the early 80s, and this somewhat quirky little film epitomizes it. Thumbs up.

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One of the best movies with a excellent acting I've ever seen!

I am unable to be interested in watching movies since a long time. I watch like 2 or 3 movies a year but I could watch this movie in one go. The emotions and acting made me cry a lot throughout the whole movie. The main lead did an awesome acting (I want to say this 1000 times) , I could feel his emotions deeply. The little girl also slayed her acting. Not to mention the whole supporting characters did very well too. The story was very well written. I'm not good at writing reviews but had to write it anyway cause it's too good! Thanks a lot to the whole cast and crew of the movie! I found this movie a very inspiring and motivational.

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Slow, non-linear story, but still engaging

Desert of No Return was a slow paced, non-linear (very non-linear) story about two people in dire financial straits who hooked up one night leading to tragedy. The film felt dragged out by bouncing back and forth in time and telling the story from both main characters' points of view. Soo Eun's story was far more compelling and Ha Yoon Kyung did a superb job bringing her to life.

Tae Shik is a divorced father who lives with his mother and can't make ends meet providing for both households. He collects junk from sellers and illegally from abandoned houses. His ex-wife takes every opportunity to denigrate him as well as people on the street. He goes with a friend to a karaoke bar where girls are provided for companionship. Soo Eun wants to own a nail salon but is short of the cash needed. She is in a loving relationship with a female musician and promised to never sleep with the clients during the "second round." Tae Shik and a reluctant Soo Eun end up in a hotel room which sets a terrible chain of events in motion.

Tae Shik was a man incapable of properly handling adversity or confrontation. If there was any effort to make him sympathetic it did not work with me. The more I discovered about him the less I empathized with him. All I learned from the film was that even ahjussis can be deadly dangerous if provoked or steal from you when your back is turned. Soo Eun made a choice she paid for in multiple ways. Though she worked to be a good human being she lost everything due to a desperate decision. The film bounced not only between the two characters' points of view but also back and forth in time which could be confusing.

Tae Shik's story tried to explain his rage which Jo Sung Ha portrayed well. Ha Yoon Kyung brought out Soo Eun's vulnerable side as well as her fierce side. She was beautiful whether made up or sans free of makeup and gave a lovely performance as the doomed young woman. The music was quietly moving though I disagree with her lover, even musicians have to pay their bills.

I didn't particularly enjoy the first part of the film but found myself engrossed in Soo Eun's romance and story. Many synopses made her out to be a prostitute. I don't think one time brands a woman for life. I felt the ending was unsatisfactory, but that could be because I do like my endings tied up with a bow one way or another. Had the rest of the film felt as complete as Soo Eun's story I would have enjoyed it more.

9/19/23

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Curious concept and cute fantasy costumes are the only good thing here

To be honest most of my rating went down because of the ending, had they dealt with that differently this would have been a passable 5 surprisingly. It would have been one of those bad movies that are still surprisingly entertaining with its many flaws.

I went with very low expectations and only started watching it to kill some time, only by the preview I already thought it was going to be cringy and bad, and I was generally not wrong, but surprisingly I did find it more entertaining than expected because of the plot.
The whole vibe this was giving me was school play, flashy costumes, everything clean and staged, exaggerated acting or amateur acting and so on, even the premise is kind of weird since it's mostly Cinderella but Red Riding Hood is there just because. It's fine, I could get at some points not even themselves were taking it too seriously, especially towards the beginning. They didn't seem to have high expectations and nor did I have them, so I just chilled and watched.

Plot became interesting with the crime and the changes to the different characters compared with the most known story version of Cinderella but then they just went with a classic detective Conan move of revealing everything at the end instead of taking us with them for the ride. I enjoyed Conan when I was a kid but it would get repetitive and boring after a while because he would only solve everything in the last two minutes bringing evidence that no one, not even the spectator, knew about. This was very similar in that respect and I could still have given it a general pass if it wasn't for that victim blaming right there.
Sure, Cinderella shouldn't have done what she did (especially with her sister), BUT the guy was assaulting her plus everyone else knew that guy had been doing it for a while to other women as well... sure, he was powerful but considering he was not in good terms with the prince either you would think that power would be deminished by that single fact and she would get a sentence based on the nuance of the situation. Either way, I'm going here on details when the movie didn't care much for them at all, what makes that ending as bad as it is. Moral of the story is don't defend yourself when a guy is physically assaulting you I guess.
Although moral of the story is don't judge people by their physical appearance according to them, but they all had thick makeup on (maybe just me but especially the prince, wow, it was not subtle at all), hair with a tone of hairspray and pristine clothing, including Red Riding Hood eventhough she wasn't even a local. I guess at the end we got the message that we shouldn't discriminate against people with face scars and freckles, what is already an achievement considering many people in Japan think freckles are ugly.

I'm only giving it a two because the concept wasn't that bad even with the whole cringe fest of everything, but that ending and its morality deserves a zero.

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