Reviews

the description is a mislead & wrong - skip it -

i don't think the supernatural tag fits this movie, this more a psychological mystery, thriller. even though i get that the premise where a family member sacrifice's themselves for a sick loved one & after the sacrifice, their loved one miraculously heals/recovers - there is something very supernatural about that & yet it isn't supernatural in the line of Exhuma or The Priests, where there is an other worldly entity - the battle of good vs evil is very clear.. this just felt like a mind-f*ck, people that r brain washed into cults out of desperation, that can be contagious. a desperation that would drive them to commit evil deeds, to be exploited, deluding themselves into thinking they r doing it for a greater good or that it was some kind of sacrifice - an offering to God, like the one that was asked of Abraham from the bible.

having said this, i feel like i need to watch this a couple more times - cause after one watch i am confused at parts & feel like info in missing at others. also given the fact that Ju Yeong was still investigating the club members of the cult, it felt like an open end.
the acting was good & i was hooked after the scene of the confession, but as i feel like a lot went over my head i don't wanna add more... as it might be a wrong assumption on my part. maybe after a few more watches & getting a better hold of things i will edit this review.

bottom line - i enjoyed this (in spite of what i wrote above) & will happily rewatch when i get a chance, great acting & interesting plot.

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Love Me, Love Me Not felt surprisingly long for how little actually happens. The pacing is slow, but at the same time, the emotional development feels rushed, like everything is happening too fast without enough depth. Honestly, this story would have worked much better as a drama rather than a movie.

Plot*
The film follows Yuna and Akari, two high school girls with completely different views on love. Yuna is dreamy and idealistic, in love with the idea of romance, especially a prince-like character from a childhood book, while Akari is more grounded and realistic. When Yuna meets Rio, who looks just like the boy from her book, she immediately falls for him, only to discover he’s Akari’s stepbrother.


Spoilers ahead***


From there, the story turns into a complicated love square: Yuna loves Rio, Rio is in love with Akari, and Akari is trying to suppress her feelings for Rio while slowly opening herself up to Kazuomi. On paper, it’s a messy but interesting setup. In execution, though, it feels unrealistic.

The biggest issue is how quickly everything resolves. Characters confess, move on, and change feelings with very little buildup. Rio, in particular, goes from being deeply in love with Akari to suddenly accepting Yuna, which feels abrupt and unconvincing. The emotional weight just isn’t there to support these shifts.
Akari’s internal conflict and her feelings for Rio felt real. I can see how deeply in love they were but the fact that they were step siblings was like a death sentence to them. Honestly made no sense, and also the way she brushed off her feeling for Rio and moved on to Kazuomi, raised so many questions.

The way they were moving from one to another felt forced, unnatural, and not realistic. Maybe being a movie it played a big part by affecting the flow. One moment you see Rio's burning for Akari, In love with her and also suffering because he can't be with her but then the next minutes he just move on like it's nothing e. This make me feel like all their feelings lack validity and strength. Felt more like kids obsessed over toys than teenagers navigating love.

Because the story is adapted from a manga, it feels like too much was compressed into a short runtime. The result is a film that somehow feels both dragged out and incomplete at the same time. Scenes linger, but the characters themselves don’t grow enough. In the end, Love Me, Love Me Not just feels like a story that needed more time, more space, and more emotional buildup to truly work.

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Definitely one that should have been left in the Shaw Brothers vaults

An almost desperate attempt to stay relevant during Hong Kong's emerging 80s New Wave movement, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is a seemingly Frankenstein'd fever dream of sex, sci-fi and ill-advised musical numbers. A serial farce that, even with logic and reason relegated to afterthoughts, the weirdness that shows up here is mystifying in its inanity. It feels like each of the six writers was separately sequestered and asked to write fifteen minutes' worth of material each before being thrown together in a blender; the result is a pretty risible sex comedy with incredibly poor jokes ranging from suicide and impotence to rape and fame, all delivered by a cast of petty, venal, tantrum-prone characters. Granted, there are some interesting enough production values, the special effects scenes are brief, but eye-catching: a giant spaceship made of stars, shuttle bays cribbed from Battlestar Galactica, a Millennium Falcon look-alike swoops across the night sky, while the vast sets are beautifully lit in swathes of orange, blue and gold. Director Alex Cheung was clearly more at home with his crime dramas, because when he turned his hand to the nonsense on display here, which is close to a full-on cinematic disaster, the energy is manic, the cast match it, but the sped-up slapstick quickly wears thin. Despite an amusing pseudo-lightsaber/nunchuck battle against a Darth Vader-clone towards the end, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is undoubtedly one film more geared towards the self-punishing crowd, a truly one-of-a-kind exercise in confusing entertainment. Definitely one that should have been left in the Shaw Brothers vaults because a few more layers of dust wouldn't have made much difference.

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Turn Your Brain Off

HUMINT is a Korean spy film… that ends up being just another generic action movie.

The story revolves around human trafficking, crime networks, and the Russian mafia.
Heavy subject… completely generic execution.

Same formula again: many vs one…
but always attacking one at a time.
Like they’re waiting in line.

The “good guys” are perfect at everything:
taekwondo, flawless aim, insane reflexes.
They can even land shots by bouncing bullets off the ground.

The “bad guys”… can’t hit anything.
Not even at close range.
Except for the main villain, of course. He actually feels dangerous.

The body count is exactly what you’d expect:
enemies piling up like props during endless shootouts.

The movie tries to say something about corruption —
that everyone, even the police, takes advantage of others.
But in the end, it falls back on the usual cliché:
the unstoppable hero
and the “girl in danger” as motivation.

And then comes the most forced part:
characters who should behave like spies…
suddenly act like elite agents,
while everyone else conveniently becomes incompetent so they can shine.

And yes… you can almost hear the director saying:
“run straight into the bullets.”

Final verdict

If you like turning your brain off…
5 out of 5.

If you want tension, logic, and a well-written story…
this isn’t it.

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Iconic Comedy

Blue Sky of Love didn’t attract much attention during its initial theatrical release and didn’t perform very well at the box office. However, it was later recognized as a classic Thai comedy that people should seek out and watch.

The film regained popularity after the passing of the famous comedian Kom Chuanchuen due to COVID-19, and viewers who revisited it have given overwhelmingly positive reviews, praising it as one of his iconic comedic works.

Set during the Cold War era of the 1970s, the story is grounded in real historical events involving students affected by the October 6, 1976 massacre, many of whom fled into the jungles to join the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT).

female lead is one of those who joins the communist movement in the forest, while the ml and his four friends enter the forest simply to escape city life. By chance, they miss their intended ride and end up boarding another vehicle, whose passengers are not tourists but members of the Communist Party aiming to liberate the people. Forced by circumstance, the 4 troublemakers end up embedded within the Communist camp, participating in their forest activities.

However, the 4 troublemakers end up causing chaos in the camp—for example, they accidentally harvest all the rice supplies, leading to a hilarious situation. This forces the camp leader to go into a nearby village to seek food supplies, with the four men tagging along, partly because the ml is interested in the fl.

At one point, while escaping from soldiers, the male lead and his friends get separated. The film clearly divides the narrative into parts, first focusing on the male lead’s friends, which is full of humor, before shifting back to the male and female leads along with the camp leader, where the tone becomes more serious. There are also light romantic moments between the leads, along with a somewhat melodramatic backstory for the male lead.

The movie concludes with a "Happy Ending" typical of the comedy genre, while successfully portraying the ideological conflicts of that era. While some of the humor is uniquely Thai, the core comedy remains universal.

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