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Solid weekend movie
Hitman Agent Jun is a solid weekend blockbuster with action , wit and a whole lot of comedy!The story is your typical usual agent trope of the retired agent with a family being forced back in to the fold by circumstances out of his control etc. Hitman Agent Jun plays on the trope quite well with sincerity and familial bonds galore.
The movie plays as very tongue in cheek which adds to the charm of the whole effort overall.
Maybe some weak parts in the middle but overall, a jolly watch that is really good for those weekend afternoons or nights.
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leave you pondering the complexities of life
In "The Highway Family," Jung Il Woo delivers an outstanding portrayal that resonates deeply with the audience. This Korean film offers a thought-provoking exploration of the timeless dilemma between living a life of happiness with nothing, not even meeting basic needs, and living a modest existence while struggling to achieve unity as a family.The movie revolves around a family's turbulent life on a remote highway, with Jung Il Woo's character serving as the emotional anchor. His performance is a tour de force, skillfully conveying the inner conflicts and external challenges faced by his character.
"The Highway Family" doesn't provide easy answers; instead, it delves into the intricacies of human desires and priorities. The film's conclusion is satisfying, yet it leaves viewers with lingering contemplation about the choices made by the characters and, by extension, their own lives.
This cinematic masterpiece is a poignant reminder that true happiness and family bonds cannot be defined by material wealth alone. "The Highway Family" invites us to reflect on our own life decisions, making it a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant movie that will stay with you long after the credits roll.
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Gripping drama about thieves who steal your heart.
That blood is not thicker than water is at the center of Hirokazu Koreeda's family drama Shoplifters. A beautiful film that offers both uplifting humanism and some unexpected twists.It is clear that Koreeda has family as his most important subject when making films. Or rather the lack of family. In previous films such as Nobody Knows or Like Father, Like Son (both prize winners at Cannes) he explores how to create your own community even if you are not born into it. That theme is most clearly repeated in Shoplifters.
Here, in the beginning, we meet Osamu (Franky Lily) and a boy who smoothly picks up goods in a store without paying. But on their way home, they suddenly see a freezing little girl who seems to have run away from her destructive parents. They decide that she can accompany them to their house, where 3 women, one of whom is a grandmother, also live. At first, the girl is waiting, but the slightly messy and loud gathering in the family means that she will soon be living there indefinitely.
At first glance, it is nothing more than that. We get to follow the lives of the various family members and see how they try to cope with everyday life with little money. And really that would have been enough. Koreeda is a master at portraying everyday situations that don't really have much to say, but are completely fascinating to us moviegoers.
But Shoplifters also have other sides. With about a third of the film remaining, Koreeda reshuffles the cards and takes the story to unexpected lands. It works surprisingly well and is a good move purely dramaturgically.
The actors are all excellent, not least the 2 children, and the film is tight, but beautifully shot in all its everydayness. As usual, Koreeda does not go for the sentimental, but mainly spices up the story with a humanism that is really felt right down to the heart.
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The Yakuza Papers 2: Hiroshima Deathmatch
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BWH&H 2: That One
As the first sequel in this series, this one is a bit of a mixed bag. It wasn't what I had expected it to be the first time I saw it, and I was initially a little let down. Instead of following Hirono Shozo this time, we have a new main character and Shozo only makes appearances here and there. Given how things all play out, I actually enjoyed this movie much more on my second watch of it. Once you have the proper expectations, it flows better. That said, it is still my least favorite of the 5 main films.This was the last film to follow a true story too, so it's kind of cool to see the other side of things. I think the reason I don't like it as much is because the new main lead for this one doesn't have ANY redeeming qualities, and so we're just watching him screw things up everywhere he goes.
I don't have much else to say about this one. It's still a must-see if you plan to watch this series, even though it often feels more like a side story or spin off than a true sequel. You will miss important details if you skip it.
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the story is not boring
I’m really into retro aesthetics, especially the Japanese ones! this movie shows the simplicity and naturally and focus on the characters rather than fancy scenarios and super chic outfits and places! I like the story and it’s not boring, its the kind of drama that makes you remember of someone special, it’s my second time watching so it was very nice! I recommend this movie to people who are into Japanese style movies I can feel that everything about the drama is natural and it’s just the closest to reality back then in japan!Was this review helpful to you?
I do not recommend this older pinoy feel good movie to those who are eternally pessimistic, bitter and look for only faults and deep stories in every picture ...
A pleasant Filipino comedy with a slightly less realistic story at the end made me happy, mainly because of the fine exaggeration and above all the very good acting performances of Ron (Albert Martinez) and Nick (Erik Quizon, one of the two directors of this film), which mainly make the film funny .
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But I was bothered by the illogicality of some small details of the story, which in the end didn't even have to be there, the naivety that I expect in Asian (Pinoy movies) was a bit too much for my taste here (adult Marco drowning again and Raffy saving him again), some strangeness in Marco's behavior.
But overall, a nice fairy tale with male beauty and an awareness of how simple people live in this island kingdom and a good feeling that on gaytitulky.info we can have more complex and comprehensive information about some films than on IMDb itself.
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I had to go back and watch some scenes in the movie again because of the bad picture quality and English. subtitles and if I think about the "badness" then a fairly decent plot unfolds with well-known pinoy actors (Coco, Sid), with a small component of gay content and an ending that I did not expect...
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This Pinoy film is a bit different from the usual scheme of gay films
This Pinoy film is a bit different from the usual scheme of gay films from this East Asian archipelago. No poverty this time.And I can have a rather sugary Filipino pink gay book once in a while. I can look at a picture with a very simple story through Asian eyes and not be a critical European. But the end of the film is certain.
For the incidentally very decent processing (camera, editing), I deducted three out of ten points for the "shower" scenes, when the men were constantly showering in their briefs, while the Philippines is completely natural when it comes to eroticism and sex, a bit rougher erotic scenes and "fish" the kissing scene between Manny and Levi (fishy means when a straight actor is not capable of "normal" kissing with another man and just puckers his lips forward like a carp on dry land).
Overall, I'm happy with the pinoy fairy tale...
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Everything you could want from a movie. Old Boy is EVERYTHING you could want from a movie!
Park Chan Wook is a mastermind - First Joint Security Area and then The Vengeance Trilogy! It says something about film journalists that nobody wrote about Park Chan Wook before Oldboy won the grand jury prize at Cannes 2004. Oldboy is the second part (Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance was the first) in a planned revenge trilogy. Sympathy for Lady Vengeance is the third and final instalment.Dae-su wakes up in an empty room. The door is locked, no windows. His only company is the television. He gets food through a hatch. He works out, writes in his diary. Via the television, he learns that he is wanted for the murder of his wife. His daughter has been adopted by a Swedish couple (a fun small detail because a Swedish soldier also figures in Joint Security Area.) He has been stripped of everything that matters and worst of all, he doesn't know what he did to deserve it! He is fixed, every day is the same. Claustrophobia turns to despair. He tries to commit suicide but fails. After 15 years he is released. Who locked him up?! Why was he locked up!? Why was he released?!
The film is based on a Japanese manga.
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1This review may contain spoilers
"A flower once bloomed will hold to the vine, while a bud will fall."
Kurosawa Akira worked on this script but didn't live to film the story. The Sea Is Watching seemed far from his usual comfort zone as it was woman centric and heavy on romance. You'd have to go back to just after WWII to see him tread so heavily into romantic territory. Director Kumai Kei picked up his mantel and made the film, but it felt far from the Kurosawa films most of us are familiar with.The film centers around a brothel and a young prostitute named Oshin. She has a big heart and a bad habit of giving it away to the wrong men. Kikuno is an older prostitute with an older suitor who wants her to come live with him. Stopping her is a violent yakuza lover who thinks he owns her and uses her earnings to pay off bad debts. The young women stick together and support one another through their ups and downs. After a bad romance, Oshin falls hard for a destitute man who is ready to end his life. He will play a key role when a torrential storm churns up the sea and the nearby river sending flood waters toward the town.
The cinematography and sets were beautiful and the colorful kimonos stunning. The acting seemed overwrought at times as the younger thespians weren't as polished as the more experienced actors. Shimizu Misa grounded the young oiran with a more reserved performance.
This film played like a melodramatic slice of life on the wrong side of the bridge as the women dealt with the caste system, love, heartache and dangerous clients. The middle bogged down making an already long film feel longer. However, the ending gave the film the emotional weight it desperately needed when one person showed the true samurai spirit in a moment of love and sacrifice with the pure-heart of a warrior.
9/9/23
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This review may contain spoilers
"Can't I find my own happiness?"
Ozu once again examined how a traditional family was forced to confront modern thinking in relation to love and marriage. He did so in a humorous manner without wandering into the dark side as he was capable of doing. In Equinox Flower a father with two independent minded daughters found himself suffering in a sea of his own inconsistencies from which only the women in his life could save him.The film opens at the train station with a storm warning. If only the men in this film knew the storm of independent thought that was going to upend their lives. Hirayama Wataru gives an emotional toast at a young couple's wedding. He praises them for marrying for love because his marriage had been a pragmatic arranged marriage. Later that week an old friend visits him and asks him to check on his daughter, Fumiko, who has left home. She didn't want an arranged marriage estranging their relationship. Wataru found her working at a bar and in love with a musician, but happy and healthy. No problem there. One of his daughter's friends, Yukiko, asks for advice dealing with her mother who is always trying to matchmake for her. He tells her not to be in a hurry to marry. "You may think marriage is golden, but it can end up being brass." When she dreams of a love match-no problem. When a young man name Taniguchi comes to his office asking permission to marry his oldest daughter, Setsuko---big problem. He was not consulted and didn't even know they were dating. Without realizing it he begins to set into motion the kind of estrangement his friend had with his daughter. The women around him begin to mobilize in their own subtle and not so subtle ways to help him change his mind and give his blessing to the young couple.
Setsuko and Yukiko pinky swore to help deal with their domineering parents and Yukiko laid the perfect trap for Wataru. Wataru's youngest daughter, Hisako, pushed for Setsuko to have a love match knowing it would be her turn next. Kiyoko, gently nudged her husband to do the right thing, always believing that he eventually would. With four women against him he never stood a chance no matter how controlling and cantankerous he could be.
I had to remind myself numerous times that this was 1958 when Wataru dropped his clothes on the floor for Kiyoko to deal with, told her to turn the radio off like you would a child, and went drinking or on reunion trips with his buddies. He also grounded Setsuko and told her to quit her job because he was angry with her. Ozu's wives always seem terribly confined to the house with no social life whatsoever except caring for their husbands. Wataru worked late and spent time afterwards with male friends. Kiyoko stayed in the house with only a maid for company. When Kiyoko yearned for the days during the war when the family huddled together in the bomb shelters because they were actually all together, it was sad indictment on her life.
Ozu put color to good use in his first film to use it. While much of the settings were beige and gray, most of the men dressed in gray suits as well, he displayed bright pops of color in red, green, and blue. The women, with the exception of Kiyoko, often wore bright colored kimonos. His teapot (red) had a couple of closeups and trains also figured into the story as they usually did. I have never grown tired of his meditative compositions and framing of shots. The colors he chose were as soothing as they were in black and white. The only drawback to his style, for me, was as ever, the face nearly straight onto the camera framing which was jarring during dialogues because the characters were looking at me and not the character they were conversing with, bouncing back and forth like a ping pong.
Papa Hirayama came across like a 1950's man, one who was used to getting his way in everything at home. What was different was that the women in his life called him on it. Yukiko complained in the same way about her overbearing single mother and Fumiko refused to go home because her father wanted everything his way. The old tradition of a parent determining who their child would marry was giving way to the young people wanting to marry for love. And while Wataru could appreciate that for everyone else's daughter, he had trouble letting go of control of his own. Fortunately for him, the women in his life banded together to show him his own hypocrisy. He also learned when a woman said "it's fine" that he should not assume he had won the argument. Wataru was right though, it takes a lot of work to turn brass into gold in a relationship.
9/9/23
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Film at its best!
Women can be absolutely amazing sometimes. In Ang Lee's classic and glorious martial arts film, they are the ones responsible for all the action, all the rescues and villain roles. The men are mostly allowed to be contemplative and stand silently by. It simply couldn't be better.The story itself has several spices of old myths and legends, but is also a very current and moving love story where looks mean more than a lot of empty words. Actually, you probably shouldn't reveal too much of the plot, the film works best to be experienced without as little prior knowledge as possible, but when Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon kicks off, a disguised youth steals an important sword, called the Green Fate. But everything doesn't go quite as it should, an old villain named the jade fox - Totally crazy cool! - Forge evil plans and the real heroes, the master Li Mu-bai (Chow Yun-Fat) and his friend Yu Shu-lien (Michelle Yeoh) soon find themselves in both conspiracies and wild chases through the trees.
Now that martial arts movies have had a real boost in the western world in recent years, the pictures have become increasingly colorful, Hero or House of Flying Daggers to name just a few, but Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon shows that the story itself is at least as important. The film was also something of a breakthrough for Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi, who plays Princess Jen here, and who managed to combine both strength, arrogance and shyness with a single tear.
To mention some of the best first, the fight scenes are absolutely huge. When Zhang Ziyi and Chow Yun-Fat jump between both treetops and water, it is visual and fighting aesthetics at the highest level. But the coolest thing of all is when Zhang Ziyi and Michelle Yeoh lock themselves in a cramped room and try to destroy each other with all kinds of weapons. Incomparable and gorgeous!
At the same time, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a great movie because there is so much else to gripe about. Especially the love story between Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh's characters. They treat each other with the greatest tenderness, but through their looks you can read love of the deepest nature. Well acted and above all, well captured through Ang Lee's sensitive camera and his use of silence.
On the whole, it's really hard to find anything to complain about in Ang Lee's rich film. Sure, it may be a bit slow at times, but on the other hand, it highlights even more the exquisitely choreographed fight scenes and gives weight to a film that otherwise continues to run when most of the reels have already stopped.
In short, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is cinema at its best. Exciting, surprising, lustful and tragic. Seeing it is like going through a whole palette of emotions and that is exactly what makes the artist Ang Lee create a tableau out of the ordinary.
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A tale of Love and Despair
Step into the shadows of this poignant film, where you'll meet a ruthless mother, a well-intentioned but flawed father, a vulnerable girl navigating a world of heartache, and a kind but impoverished disabled man.In the realm of Taiwanese cinema, it's a familiar landscape—a tale painted with shades of darkness yet harboring a glimmer of hope. Your interpretation may vary, but for those who venture into this cinematic journey, I recommend a quiet night or a rainy afternoon. Let the unhurried pace of your surroundings mirror the deliberate cadence of the film.
At the end of the movie, it has a simple yet deep meaning of questioning what’s the meaning of life. The narrator’s words sums it up as 3 reasons of life: dependency, anticipation and for tomorrow…
Be forewarned it contains some sexual content explicitly to showcase the deepening of both leads and how their lives intertwine with each other. Hence, it’s best to be watched with anyone with maturity of age.
I would not recommend this movie to be repeatedly watched again as once you’ve seen the plot, it’s not something you can easily forget as the message is clear and punches into the heart.
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