Reviews

A cute start, but so so painfully awkward at the end

I've been sitting on this review for a while. Because all-in-all, it was a good idea. And the cast did a pretty good job at demonstrating the jealousy, shyness, and longing of their characters. But this short film's progressions was quite weird. Apparently, being so friendly that they must be in a relationships means a high five and weird jumping side hug? Even if someone took a picture to make the encounter out of context, there was nothing about that interaction that would warrant the love interest's jealousy.

The continuity with the popsicles was also so glaring that I couldn't take my eyes off of it. Well, until we got into the "kiss." They should have stuck to holding hands. Or cuddling next to each other while eating the ice cream or watching a movie. I'm not even sure if their lips were actually touching, because they were very much off to the side of each other. It looked painfully awkward. And then after the credits roll one pushes the other down on the bed. I lost what little bit of immersion I had gained back after the jealousy moment that I just can't bring myself to like this.

But the inching hands together during their study session at the beginning of the film was very cute.

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A solid yakuza movie

The plot is nothing new – driven by revenge, a former cop decides to go undercover and gradually climbs up the ranks of the Yakuza.

What really makes this movie entertaining, is not the story, but the action scenes. They are bloody, violent and well choreographed.

This movie has its problems, especially with the pacing. There are some dialogue-heavy scenes, rapid changes of the locations and new characters introduced every five minutes, especially in the first half of the movie. It might not be easy for the viewers to keep the track of what's happening, and the over two-hour runtime doesn't help. Halfway through the movie, I started wondering if it would work better as a short tv-series.

From such a stellar cast, I was expecting at least good acting, and I was not disappointed.
Okada Junichi once again shows off his top-notch fighting skills, so if you're a fan of his, or if you simply enjoy yakuza movies, I think this movie is a must-watch.

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A Pile of China Can Do Stories INSTEAD OF One Compelling Feature

I was tricked by the description of this film. On this site it says, "It tells about the Chinese people's blood connection and spiritual inheritance." I knew it was four short films and presumed it was a generational story, meaning a character that was, say, a boy in the first film would be a man in the second one... and... perhaps that man's daughter would be a woman in the next film. A 'blood connection' that would have made these four films a coherent whole.

Instead what we get is a 'pile' of 4 stories, moving forward in time but really with no relation to each other. No, there's no 'spiritual inheritance' to speak of. It's simply 4 stories about what China CAN DO when they set their minds to things, and in this way is like a cultural victory walk.

I'd say the first two segments (war, space research) were excellent dramatic pieces. But the second two segments change to comedy and sort of silly sci-fi, which is a little jarring. It leaves the viewer with the feeling these four films were part of some contest and were never intended to be shown together.

I gave the overall story rating a 6 out of 10 for this reason. Please understand each individual story was better than that, say about an 8 on average. But the feeling these were all originally different projects just stapled together really hurts this otherwise well made, well acted and well intended film.

By the way -- Zhang Zi Yi stars in another film just like this, RUN FOR LOVE, except the theme tying it all together is love. It feels even more disjointed than this and I'm convinced it's simply some short films by graduate school students. Zhang's "So Long My Love" is rather excellent. Better than her segment 'Poem' in this film that is also rather amazing. I must confess I'd love Zhang to create another short or two and tie them all together as a Zhang Zi Yi collection of stories.

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Good FX, Lame Plot

LIKES:
Location settings, lighting, colour palate were decent.
FX: the blood, vomit, fight wounds, etc.
Music was fitting, but notting stood out.
CAST: well selected for their roles (and Miyavi was great)
Choreography of the fight scenes was good.
As an action movie it was okay.

DISLIKES:
WRITING: the plot was the usual trope, with the usual stereotypes. But they wrecked what little story there was with too many “reveals”, so the final one lost it’s impact. Also the reason as to “why” was lame too, the main character needed a deeper connection. Also not too much “crime” other than the killing.
PRODUCTION: shaky camera moments, (use a FILM STABILIZER like WTF that’s filming 101). Strange editing, so that some parts felt disjointed. Also sometimes the music was too loud and you couldn't hear what the actor/actress was saying. It was very distracting, even if you read subtitles.
DIRECTING: there were moments where the camera lingered too long and was unnecessary as the scene had finished. [That could also be due to bad editing.]


OVERALL:
It was a decent watch, but didn’t need to be so long if editing had been done right. If you like little plot and just action with blood and fighting, this is a good choice. For a film made in 2022 it’s a bit disappointing. I won’t watch it again.

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What a beautiful movie.

I will not tell about the story itself, don’t want to spoil anything. You should watch it, without any one or anything disturbing you.
I would actually like to give the story and acting 12 stars. I will not forget this movie about friendship and freshness of first love. It made a great impression on me. It touched me in my heart.
The movie is the writers and directors debut of Bang Woo-ri.
Young, but already great actors - especially the ML and FL. She - Kim Yoo-jung started acting when she was only 4 years old. He - Byeon Woo-seok is als known for the 2020 drama series Record of Youth. I’ll keep following their careers.
A story like real life. Great script. No flaws or down point, everything had a natural flow.
For the music: for me it had no part in the movie - I was so involved in what happend. Duration of the movie was good. I watched the movie on Netflix.

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A little slow but a good conclusion for a great series

It’s very lovely, though I do agree with others that the film lost some of its “magic” from the original series.

It’s fine that they dropped the mind reading element, but it did feel that some of the more lighthearted, funny moments were missing. Admittedly, this also had more heartfelt moments, which held their own merit.

Overall, it helped act as a final conclusion for the series and made their story feel more complete. Which I think is the most important thing when creating a concluding movie for a beloved series.

I would recommend to anyone that enjoyed the original series. It does provide additional closure to their story.

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Waste of time.

I'll try not to give any spoilers. I expected something different and truth be said I feel disappointed after watching the whole movie, which I consider a total waste of time.
I still don't know how to evaluate the storyline. Although the dark concept didn't surprise me that much, after all, I thought nothing can beat Eternal Yesterday, but guess what? I was wrong the ending of this movie was a hard face slap.
The movie itself was confusing, weird, and brutal.
Maybe it was because of the poor translation that I couldn't understand a lot of things, and in the end, I was left with unanswered questions, like what was the point of that kid's death?
I was unable to understand Kiritani, his motives, and his actions. His personality is very confusing in my eyes, also he being a victim tried to process the trauma in a completely different way than we would have expected.
The actors gave a 9 out of 10 performance.
The music was annoying.
Overall my rating would be 4 out of ten and I'm not planning to watch this movie again.

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Movie with rich storyline and characters

So, I had this movie on my watch list for a long time (since it's release), not knowing anything about the story and never had the time to watch it in one go. I even considered it watching in chunks while riding the subway on my way to work.

Well, I'm glad I didn't. I finally got the time on christmas day and the invested time was worth it. After the first couple of minutes I also had to look twice, since I clearly didn't expect Kim Yoo-Jung in the main role, but I was even happier after my mind accepted it was true, since I really like her. The story then proceeded and I was on an emotional rollercoaster - I did go through all emotions the story presented. I was once again catched off guard after the major plot twist. Up till then, I believed it was an easy school romance story line but well - it was not. Once I swallowed the twist, the story then was easy going till the end.

So, in general: I liked this movie. Does it have flaws? Yes, it has. My main critique is the changed actress for Na Bo-Ra in the two timelines. Even though I do understand, that Kim Yoo-Jung is rather young and probably not suited to play a mid to end 30-year old women and maybe even can't depict the cool-headed and distanced emotions Han Hyo-Joo can, I would have just loved her to see it in that role. I see two reasons for that:
a.) Kim Yoo-Jung had more than 95% screentime of all Na Bo-Ra scenes, so it feels kinda ungrateful, that she can't do the last 5%
b.) It would be a huge chance for her, since she mostly played air-head, short-tempered characters, and I would have loved her to see and expand her acting spectrum with a different role, and these 5% would have been a great and forgiving possibility.

So, the change of the lead actress makes the end worse than it could be. For 1:45 hours or so I felt with Na Bo-Ra, because Kim Yoo-Jung did a great job. But then, from one scene to the next (and only for the last minutes) I have to connect with a different actress? That's not cool. If the switch would have been done after 1h or so, it wouldn't have been such a great issue.

Otherwise, the story was well written. All actors did a great job depicting their specific character. All of them felt alive and important for the story. None was expendable.


To sum it up, I rate it as 10/10 personally, but it should have been a 9.5 due to the changed actress.

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Mummy movie with untapped potential

When I saw the low rating I thought it couldn’t be that bad - sadly it was. The storyline seemed interesting. Kind of like “The Mummy” in a Chinese version and a little different backstory. As a story there wasn’t anything wrong but the quality of the movie was just too bad. Especially the end scene makes no sense when this is supposed to be a love across time.
Character wise there were these mainly three people. A FL who back in ancient time was in love with an ancestor of ML. Then we have 2ML who was the son of a man who forced FL and ML to separate so he could marry FL himself. Due to a curse, FL kills 2ML by mistake and is buried in a tomb with 2ML. They come back to life 2.000 years later and FL meets ML.
Acting wise this is really not top shelf and since the actors are rather experienced it must be the directing that causes the movie to look like it’s low budget (maybe it is?). What a pity.
Anyway, if you like a mummy-movie that is not so scary - and don’t mind the low quality - this is an ok watch but nothing more.

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A HIDDEN GEM LIKE NO OTHER

This movie gave me what any other drama series couldn't. So pure, so innocent, delightful. This movie will remind you of your first love, your unrequited love, and your fantasy with them.
A plot where you can help but feel wholesomeness and warm-hearted. A cast that can make you experience life, longing, fluster, love, regret, and sadness all in just 1 hour and 30 minutes. It would have been even better if this was a drama series. As a person who doesn't get emotional easily, tears started rolling down towards the end. It is indeed rare to see such movies nowadays. Two individuals unsure about each other feelings want no regrets but have to make sacrifices. There is no kissing scene but you would still feel chemistry burning and the romance thriving .

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She was his greatest Love

This is my first Filipino Movie. Well the storyline was really unexpected. I literally didn't think it would be like this. This movie has something really special about itself. The story was somehow new and different.

STORY
About the sudden but great love story of Kenji and Athena. Athena Abigail was diagnosed with a disease and was dying. So Abigail break up with Kenji. Kenji doesn't wanna let her go so he fake dates with the same named girl Athena. She was a heart patient. While fake dating Kenji and Athena falls in love but Abigail couldn't bear the pain of her broken heart anymore. Kenji finds out the true about Abigail so both Athena and Kenji decides that Kenji should stay with Abigail. Years later because of Kelay and Ken they were reunited.

Things I Like

. The way the story progress.
. The Plot Twist.
. Ken and Kelay recreating Kenji and Athena's dance scene.
. Ken proposing Kelay to marry him at the airport.
. The music.
. Backstory was perfectly shown.
. Kenji and Athena's outfit.
. Kenji and Athena's love story.
. Kenji truly loving Abigail after marrying her.
. Kenji being happy after holding Ken for the first time.


This movie is really good and beautiful. Highly recommend.

~25/12/2022

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Worthy-watch!

the thing about those horror movies with cliché plots it's not to expect that much, but also do not underrate before watching. personally i did not saw many jumpscares, but i was tense the whole movie – which means it's serving the right purpose.

the story can get you a little confused during the movie because of the different timelines, but everything gets tied by the end (for me, at least). i get why people compare Guimoon to Gonjiam, but besides being similar when it comes to place setting, the history here tries to have a little more development with the shaman and her son.

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Being brave does not mean not being afraid...

It means doing what's right despite your fears. Great message for a movie that obviously has kids as their target audience. And for kids I would for sure recommend it.

It was painfully cheesy, especially the ending. The messages were literally slapped into my face, no ambiguity, no need to dwell on them more. The power of love, care, friendship, bravery, apology, reconciliation - everything kids should be learning about, you have it here.

Watanabe Kei is honestly a great character - usure and scared, but willing to learn and improve if it means helping others and saving his younger brother. He is not a perfect hero, he is a normal kid that other children can relate to. What helps is also an amazing performance from Terada Kokoro - this child knows how to scream and has actually great comedic and dramatic skills.

Production was nice, typical for fantasy movies for younger audiences, focused on the practical makeup and costumes with CGI just as an addition slapped on top.

Overall, while I obviously was not in mind of the creators when they made it, I still had a great time and even cried by the end. As cheesy as it was, it’s a nice and simple story that can teach kids some life lessons.

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Lacks proper set-up and introduction.

When is a tomb raiding story good? When it has a solid backstory and mystery set from the start that drives the curiosity of the viewers. When the characters are fun and interesting to watch and the teamwork and dynamics are entertaining. What does The Tomb of Ghost Mojin lack? All the above.

It’s another case of a movie that works on paper, but was not translated well on screen. The characters were painfully dry and boring, the story was fun, but only retrospectively when they explained it all by the end. It was nice looking, but also way too dark to truly appreciate it.

Overall, I honestly have little to say. I liked the ending? I guess that’s that.

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