Reviews

Very much an anime-style live action.

Overall, it is what it says on the tin. A mind-free action comedy.

Personally wasn’t all too sure about Raul’s yankee talk, felt a little idol-actor to me (which, to be fair, he is), however Tsuchiya Tao really stole the show here. The eccentricity and costume paired with, by far, the most entertaining and interesting character.

Plot wise it felt pretty standard, and as far as live action adaptations go, visually, they went the eccentric, anime-style route, which, to their credit, worked well paired with the over the top, anime-style acting.

Personally, the music detracted in a few moments for me. Might be a personal taste thing but there you go. Personally won’t revisit this.

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Weak

The entire concept of the film confuses me and I have to wonder what was the point of each of these stories. I don’t understand why people’s whose subconscious was uploaded can’t be aware they are death or in a coma. It seems like the people that invented the Wonderland system is setting it up to fail.

Despite its star studded and incredibly talented cast, this film is flawed on its storytelling. They could have done something interesting with the concept it is based on, and about human nature, love, grief and how to move forward. Instead there’s a lot of unjointed nothing.

Overall the film is well produced. It’s not a bad or good film, it’s okay.

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Soulless story with a ridiculous plan

I’m quite disappointed in this movie to the point where I didn’t even finish it. The plot, or rather the plan the ML has is so dumb that I couldn’t suspend my disbelief enough for it. Also, the FL was okay with his plan which is mind blowing in how dumb it is.

SPOILERS!

His plan is basically to fake being a piano player to trick the FL, a pianist who is blind, to fall in love with him I guess. He says it’s to make her happy but he could have gotten someone to just play the piano for her and not pretend it’s him and manipulate this vulnerable woman who he thinks won’t be able to tell that it’s not him because she is blind. Anyways, he is basically broke but to go through with this ridiculous and idiotic plan with a payoff that I’m not sure he even knows what it is, he gets a night job and is barely sleeping basically breaking himself so he can afford to pay this guy to play the piano and pretend to be him. Dude, what the hell man?! How is this something that makes even remote sense.

Also, the direction the actor received was to act like a zombie. He walks around with this blank look on his face, hunched posture, really weird gait. I know it’s supposed to look like he’s given up on life but it’s not executed well.

Then we find out that the FL knew that it wasn’t him the entire time and she was just okay with this person lying to her, cool, so that’s dumb.

It also felt quite soulless for some reason. The whole plot is supposed to be so moving but it just felt empty to me. Maybe it was the direction the actors were given, maybe it was the stupidity of the plan the ML had, I don’t know. It just felt lacking.

I just don’t get it. I watched the majority of this movie (before I dropped it) in bursts. I couldn’t even watch it for too long before getting too annoyed and bored to continue. I had so much hope for this movie and I’m sad to say it was squandered.

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Nearly Perfect

This film is what I would describe as a youth film, it explores a certain chapter of the female main characters youth. The acting, cast, directing were all perfect. This was a nearly perfect film. Even if it contains a couple of plot twists, the first was executed well, the second plot twist left questions that needed answering. At the end there were gaps in the stories of the characters, there wasnt much closure in terms of side characters and even the main characters themselves and that left me wondering and slightly annoyed. HOWEVER, this is definitely still worth the watch, it was not left completely open ended there was some form of closure. The acting and overall atmosphere of the film means its definitelty worth watching, its an experience I would pay to watch you see.

I would not rewatch but once you also watch it, Il think you will see why. :)

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This is what a mini drama should be.

A clean and clear script of palace intrigue, re-incarnation and the ultimate revenge!

Lately I have stumbled across mini dramas. 20 or so episodes of 3-7min each. Eventually someone puts them all together to make a movie version. It's a good thought but its ultimately botched because we have to depend on the person editing and their perspective of what scenes are relevant to the storyline. Not a good idea.

Anyway, back to this review.
This movie was the perfect version of what a mini drama should be like. Even the flashbacks made sense. The characters actions and conversations made sense. Great continuation without overwhelming the audience.
It might not seem fare to compare this movie to the mini dramas and I'm not. I'm just saying this movie was great and can be mistaken for the mini dramas.

The ending was timely, not dragged on like other historical dramas. Perfect for back to basic drama watching. High quality set, costume, actors and plot. I would definitely recommend it to friends and family and even newcomers to the Cdrama world.

P.S I watched it on YouTube and the tittle there is "The Queen's Revenge".

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A Must Watch for Ardent Gun Atthaphan Fans

This is a serendipitous find and what a find it is. Sometimes one needs to go back in order to proceed forward. Admittedly, this is a movie that goes way back and by today’s standards in the BL world might be considered ‘old’ and maybe thought of as remote. Its reviews were less than stellar, which is incredulous, and I think based on a misunderstanding of what this movie was all about. I hesitate to reference it as a BL, however. More aptly, it certainly is a gay film. A gay film highlighted by elucidations from the inner thoughts of a mind of a tortured young gay boy, struggling with his ‘coming out.’ If you see it as that, it will have more meaning.

Read the complete article here-

https://the-bl-xpress.com/2024/08/01/the-blue-hour-movie-review/

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The price of loneliness

Aloners is a film written and directed by Hong Sung Eun, the only full-length film she’s done thus far. Which is disappointing because I quite liked her take on the price of loneliness and would love to see what else she has to offer. This film followed a young woman unable to reach past her own defenses to connect with anyone around her, further pushing her deeper inside herself.

Jin Ah works at a credit card call center where she has to daily deal with rude customers and a frustrated time traveler. She lives alone. Eats alone. Smokes alone. Rides the bus alone. At a job where the employees have been zombified by the mind-numbing monotony, she works alone. Her relentless routine is challenged when she’s ordered to train Su Jin, the bubbly new employee. Su Jin has moved from her hometown to work in the bigger city and has no friends or family, leaving her alone. The only family Jin Ah has is her estranged father who had abandoned their family and swindled her as well. Jin Ah’s equally reclusive neighbor is found a week after he died buried under a fallen wall of magazines in his apartment. Suddenly and achingly, Jin Ah is forced to face her solitary existence.

Gong Seung Yeon perfectly captured Jin Ah’s tightly wound personality walking through her life where every day was just the same. Jin Ah was a prisoner in a castle, surrounded by a crocodile infested moat, a prison she had created herself. Earphones ever present to ward off any potential human contact, her only companions were her phone and television. A new neighbor asked, “Do you make a habit of being pissed off all the time?” And that was the key to Jin Ah, she wasn’t just an introvert, she was a tight ball of repressed anger and pain. Each new hit cracked away at her immaculately structured defenses

Being alone is something everyone faces at one time or another, chronic loneliness is a silent destructive force and the pain of it was palpable with the characters in this film. Director Hong slowly and subtly showed varying viewpoints on how people deal with loss and grief and the importance of human connection to help heal those wounds. If you are a fan of slow, slice of life films this might be one to try.

1 Aug 2024

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a Reverse Heist that alone sounded intriguing

I loved every minute of this movie from the beginning to the end. I'm just a sucker for such movies where a group of people with different set of skills and abilities come together and work as a team it's just so pleasing and entertaining to watch as viewer

the characters are so fun and enjoyable to watch none of them felt like a side character , this entire team really made the movie stand out. the casting for this movie was done perfectly.

that's why this movie overall is a 10/10 for me

so if you plan to watch this movie all I say is enjoy the ride cause it's gonna be a fun one 😭😫

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what and why?

1. what happened in the past credits roll scene? like, i didn't understand why hyeonsoo (wooshik) and his mother were laughing at the end.

2. couldn't understand how the wonderland program worked. the dead people's mind were there in their AI versions or weren't?

3. couldn't even understand if or how the characters had feelings for the AI versions of their beloved ones. we can clearly see that they hug up the phone calls without saying goodbye or anything, showing that they don't really care cause the AI people aren't real at the end of the day. so why they signed up for the wonderland program anyway?

4. why taejoon (bogum) was totally different when he woke up? why jeongin (suzy) ran to taejoo only when he was far away? why taejoo was mad or confused (didn't get how he felt) when jeongin showed his AI version?

5. why sung joon (gongyoo) had romantic feelings for bai li (tang wei) if she was dead?

6. if sung joon could enter in bai li's program, why they didn't bring her child to see her? and as they had the possibility to enter in the AI world, why this wasn't the main program instead of the phone calls one?

7. when haeri (yumi) canceled jingu's (jungsang) program cause apparently his grandmother was dead, why she told him instead of just stopping the program? and she was being serious or just wanted an excuse to end his program cause he was bad towards his grandma?
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besides all my doubts, i didn't felt any compassion for the characters as they weren't well developed.

i just rated 5.5 because the cast was full of amazing actors and they did awesome. it's a pity that the screenwriter didn't gave them a good story and development.

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Alien + Time Travel = Why not?

I really love this one- it's so much better than the 1st part, although we kinda need the 1st part to build up to where we are.

This one is more lighthearted, funny, action packed and faster pacing. I love the combination of sorcery and science, past and future, young and old, and everything in between

More than one plot twists and its real good. It's also touching in the end, got me in tears.

I love the casts too- like everyone of them did really well and play very important part

I become a fan of Kim Woo Bin after this too! Highly recommend part 2!

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A self-assured exercise in style.

I wanted to start August off right and I knew August in the Water just had to be watched after my experiences with Gakuryū Ishii back in January. Mixing New Age spirituality, animism, astrophysics and advancement in technology, August in the Water can easily be described as the quintessential vaporware film, often feeling like several overlapping films that somehow complement and deepen each other's various mysteries. Ishii crafts a film that largely unfolds as a succession of mood pieces, remaining optimistic as it deconstructs the meaninglessness of our existence while simultaneously offering a hallucinatory analysis of coming-of-age malaise. The direction and framing are just sumptuous, it's all handled in a familiar and comforting style not too far removed from other Japanese filmmakers of the '90s. Part of that comfort comes from the film's incredible sound design and gorgeous musical score by Hiroyuki Onogawa, new age sound blending with classical synthesisers. Exceptionally intriguing and self-assured exercise in style with wry observations about modern Japanese life, August in the Water is simply beautiful in its deliverance, one that I can't recommend enough.

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