Reviews

You know, I can't even be mad at this movie. It was so cringey that it was actually cute. Lol
I'm still kinda laughing though because ... you can absolutely tell what year this movie was made but it also gave me a bit of nostalgia feelings. lol

I'm still a little confused about the back story though because we learn why he didn't like being touched (though we can get the reason why through flashbacks, we just never knew WHO) -- it happened when he was a kid but from how his mother seemed to speak, was that she hasn't even seen him since that happened... so you just dropped your kid at some school and never saw him for 10+ years? Are you serious? And we all know his brother screaming sorry in the woods before he died (yes, we know why but I'm just disgusted) -- so what? The mom drops one kid but keeps the pos? Since she was the one that found him in the woods before he died? Not to mention the other guy who kept sexually assaulting him because he "liked" him... Dude is just disgusting man. Who the hell thinks "I'ma win this person by forcing myself on them" yuck!!!!!!
I don't know... I got like a million thoughts and just want to puke. My emotions are everywhere.
I want it to go back to the cute fluff it was before. Lol

Other than that gross part(s), this movie was actually really good.

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The best Japanese movie I have ever watched

This movie far exceeded my expectations. Usually Japanese dramas and movies have the crappiest acting and romance ones have unrealistic direction, but this was quite different which seperated it from the rest.
Story : You have to close your sense of detective thinking while watching this movie. The story lacked logic in many scenes, but logic isn't the goal of this movie. It is basically story of a shut in man who falls in love with a woman through a peep hole.but one day he witnesses a horrifying incident through the peephole, and what happens after that forms the rest of the story. Don't go in and watch it for a thriller movie. This movie is a pure romance movie, and you might find a few jump scares here and there. There isn't comedy here, but the sweet romance calms up the movie. So , this movie is not a thriller movie, but a romantic one. The story is one of its strongest points and I have watched several thousand movies in fifteen languages, and never have I come across a movie with this kind of story.
Acting: this is another strong point to the movie. All actors in this movie showed flawless acting skills, and this is the first japanese film I enjoyed after watching many crapy ones. None of the actors felt cartoonish, and though I never felt sad feelings, it is not required in this movie as it is a weird movie. The slashing and fighting seemed bad, but since I am not a fan action scenes and skip them usually, I was able to overlook it. The romantic feelings were really good, and the actors didn't speak mind voices which were irritating in other japanese dramas.
Music: I never usually listen to songs in movies, but the sound effects in this movie were good. I didn't notice any faults, but neither was it memorable.
Re-watch value: I never re-watch movies and shows, but this movie is definitely a one time watch for everyone. Because once you know the twists in the story, you would be bored to watch it.
Overall: for viewers like me who hate tragedies, this would be a very good movie. And compared to other japanese content, I liked this very much. Hope japan makes many shows and movies with realistic acting. A spectacular night watch👍👍👍

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A complete waste of time.

Totally no substance in the story. It's like the production team had a big chunk of money but no story to convey, so they decided the filming location to be abroad as the solution to spend at least 80% of the budget, which would show the result of efficiency in budget planning. But by utterly having no idea about what story they should weave, they just threw a very unlikely scene of a catastrophic incident into one point in time during the 90-minute timespan WITHOUT. A. CAUSE. It's like they also knew how their story had nothing at all, so that 'one point in time' they put the incident into was the opening scene to arouse people's curiosity. Though with this trick, the circumstances during the 90 minutes that followed were still very boring and not interesting at all cost. From beginning to end, there's absolutely no meaning in any moment - nothing meaningful in or behind the catastrophic incident - so as the whole story.

Therefore, let me be rude here -- to hell with the movie title! How is this "A Passage Of My Youth" (--I watched this movie with this as the official movie's title on IQIYI website)?? They didn't have any message to tell the viewers, and they knew it, the hecking incident being used as the bait is the evidence of how obvious this fact also bore in their mind.

Just let me rant a bit more about the acting here -- the acting is so bad. Song Wei Long is so amateur in this film. He looks super young in here, though, so maybe they filmed this when he had less experience before his popularity exploded after all his series that broadcasted in 2020. Jiang Chao's acting is as unimpressive as Song Wei Long's. I don't feel anything along with him. Zhang Zi Feng's is so-so. Her role is super boring and uninteresting. It's a role that has nothing to show, naturally the actor who plays it wouldn't have anything to deliver to the audience.

The cinematography is also very amateur.

I totally don't understand how the producer was willing to invest his money in this self-destroying project.

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P.S.1 Just noticed that this film is adapted from a novel. I don't know if the novel is any good, but this film already destroyed the reputation of the novel.

P.S.2 Just saw the information that this film was shot in 2016 on Baidu. So my speculation about the acting experience of Song Wei Long is right - so is my speculation about the fact that it bears in the producer/production team's minds how bad this film is. It's the fact that made them put this film on the shelf for a total of 5 years. I think this film would be on the shelf forever if not for Song Wei Long's popularity to skyrocket in 2020. Right after that year, they just grasped this last opportunity to make this film any use by finally releasing it.

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Disappointing

I really had hight hopes when I saw the trailer to this movie, and was expecting something really good, but sadly this was such a major disappointment, that I am literally mad about this movie.

Firstly, and the one thing that got me, was how on earth you have a vampire with out FANGS?
Secondly, a vampire without special powers, I mean have you all seen Vampire Diaries? that is what you call a Vampire (Damon)
Thirdly, if this was meant to be a supernatual or a thriller they definately need to go do more research and find out how a vampire supernatural is meant to be!!

The acting was really bad and there was no flow whatsoever to this, for me it did not make any sense, and the movie name is really good, and gives you this major impression of an excellent movie, but sadly for me this was just terrible.

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An interesting idea backed by a relatively weak plot

A lot of invisible threads bind this cerebral sci-fi narrative, so many left open that at the end of the movie I was left questioning everything.

Story:
The premise is immediately attention grabbing for a fan of science fiction/thrillers - a spaceship that returns from a mission 150 years later with a sole female survivor. Of course there will be an inquiry panel set up that shall debrief the astronaut and inquire about what happened to the ship for 150 years.

The opening sequence begins with the inquiry already ongoing. While that is fine, as a viewer I felt hurried into the movie and it took me a while to get my bearings and understanding of what was happening.

The entire movie is an interview where the female astronaut speaks about her experience and is broken into chapters. I found the pace was fine after the first chapter and the story too was interesting but not a lot is explained.

It is assumed that the viewer is also living in this advanced world (we are 150 years ahead of time) and is aware of all the technology. We are introduced to an alien species but are never told where they went. We are told they are an intelligent life form but are never told what their purpose is. The robot should be still alive but he isn't. What happens after the inquiry?

And therefore, a lot of incidents from this uni-directional narrative were left unexplained while the astronaut wasn't questioned much at all about them.
I mean, this is an inquiry panel at least make it believable that the sole survivor of a 93 people manned ship is interrogated right. So many minor storylines were introduced but never explored and did not receive closure which left me feeling unsatisfied at the end of the movie.

Acting/Cast:
The robot 7 by virtue of being a robot should have no emotions so his acting was superb! The female astronaut also did fine with her role. Considering this was a thriller, the acting was okay.

Overall:
Overall, this movie veers more towards the philosophical than sci-fi action. This is my first Chinese Sci-fi so I was impressed with parts of the story but parts of it also disappointed me because of a lack of logical explanation. There are some thrills in this movie which make it an easy one-time watch for a lazy day and that's my verdict.
Go watch it on the weekend if you have time! Its a 7/10 for me.

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Slapstick but actually funny

The vibe of this movie was so weird when I first started watching; it felt like one of those Taiwanese or Japanese ads that are just purposely really weird and over-the-top. It was a little offputting at first, but once I got past this initial hump, I actually started to really appreciate how committed the movie was to that tone, and how it actually meant that scenes were genuinely funny, even though I was never a huge fan of slapstick humor.

All that aside, this movie doesn't introduce much new content than what is already in the original (for the record, I've only watched the k-drama adaption Playful Kiss). I enjoyed this movie a lot more than Playful Kiss actually — the main female lead felt a lot less pathetic even though I still didn't love the aspect of her continually chasing after the main male lead and having her life revolve around him.

Unsurprisingly, a movie isn't able to spend that much time with the development, and there were definitely parts that I thought were a little jumpy. I did, however, think this was actually better than Playful Kiss in that aspect as well.

There were definitely other characters and subplots that I wish the movie could have dedicated more time to, still. Although I think a full drama is unnecessary, I think maybe a mini series with five-ish episodes would have worked.

Great OST.

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This was a crime against anime, manga, dramas, and musicals.

When I heard that there was a Wotaku live action, I had to find it. I HAD TO. I adore the anime and manga. The anime is on my comfort list. (iykyk) But THIS? This was an assault on the senses. Unless you plan on buying out the liquor store and taking a pull every moment you regret watching this, just don't. Because I want those 2 hours of regret back, I want to unwatch this so much. I want to unhear and unsee this disaster.
This disaster barely resembled Wotaku as we know and love it.

There's a character minimum on this so here's a story. My great dane puppy is 140lb of curiosity and suffering from Teenager Syndrome. So in the midst of my rescuing a honeybee from a mud pit, my curious canine came bounding over and shoved her face onto the patio chair I'd placed our muddy little friend on before I could remind her of safety rules. So our little buzzing buddy got onto my pup's lip and I'm diving for the bee even while it's stinging my poor pup who's already halfway across the yard doing the "get it off!" dance. I'm muddy, the bee is dead, and my puppy has a puffy lip and the inability to keep her cement-like drool to herself for the time being.

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Great little movie; better than the original short on Five Senses of Eros (2009)

The cinematography is great on this movie, and the actors/actresses do a good job making you feel they are who their characters were supposed to be in the movie!

The first person to review this movie thought that it was strange and "You will need to suspend disbelief while watching this."

You have to forget linear time to understand what is going on in this movie!

if you can do that, you can piece together what happened, not presented in chronological order, and what the movie is trying to say.

This is similar to many love triangles where a man is married to a stoic, dependable but DULL woman, and he cheats on her with a bubbly, undependeable, but EXCITING womans in order to feel young again...You could compare this movie with The Stud andThe Nympho (1980). However, if you don't listen closely to what is being said by Kang Na Roo in this movie, mispelled on some sites as to Na-ru (Kim Hyo-jin) you miss understanding what was actually happening, and after finding out what was/is happening you can also understand why Lee Jung Ha (Kim Hyo Jin) finally told Mini Jae-in (Hwang Jung-min) that he could finally leave.

I didn't like the non-chronological sequence of events until I figured out how the director had set this movie up, the it was both enjpoyable and made more sense after that happened.

The original short, part of Five Senses of Eros, did no tmake much sense without this extended version being released, in my opinion.

I disliked it until my brain realized the non-sequential character of the film

Read my review of The Stud andThe Nympho (1980) for more about the dualistic nature of women.

The nude love sceens were very tasteful and well-thought through and executed, but still wild.

Again, once you figure out what is really happening, it makes so much more sense and is also more enjoyable!

RE-WATCH: Definitely!

By the way,

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OH MY GOOOD!!!!!!!!!!

This was so unexpected!!! I did not expect this from an Asian drama, much less a K-drama.
The first thing that grabbed my attention were the sex scenes. I mean... I saw tongue in kissing scenes... breasts... naked bodies. I was shocked into silence.
Other than that though, the plot for the most part was good. The only thing I hated was the ending. It was disappointing and an almost waste to a good movie.
The king has groomed this man since childhood into being a homosexual. Now that he (the king's lover) has experienced an intimate relationship with a woman (instigated by the king) and starts catching feelings and questioning his sexuality, the king becomes jealous and practically goes into a frenzy. How can you expect to instigate a sexual relationship between two people and not expect their emotions to become involved??? Because of the king's greed and possessiveness a whole lot of people died.

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Artsy gay film with somber vibe

I watched this film yesterday at a special Q&A screening in Taipei. I was pretty stoked, since LGBT+ films, especially in Asia, are few and far between. I'm writing this review from the perspective of a gay guy who watches way too much BL, and not an indie film enthusiast, so if you are looking for an in-depth critique of the film, look elsewhere. I'd just like to give a short overview of what I watched to see if you would be interested in giving it a try.

As the first major gay film released in Taiwan since Your Name Engraved, I couldn't help myself from wanting to compare the films. However, they couldn't be more different. Moneyboys is a character study, not a narrative-driven romantic film. Ko does an excellent job as the reserved, emotionally suppressed Fei.

The cinematography was beautiful, and a lot of thought went into the techniques and style of the film. The movie was set in southern China, but filmed in Taiwan, which might be jarring if you have been to Taiwan and recognize some of the filming locations. Additionally, some actors are Chinese, while others are Taiwanese; if you are familiar with Mandarin, you may notice the different dialects of Mandarin between the characters. Some of the mainland accents are faked, while others are real.

Should you watch the film? If you are a BL fan who just wants a cookie-cutter romantic film, then stay away. But if you enjoy artsy films, then I would definitely recommend it. I'm guessing people's opinions of this film will be pretty polarized. But it's worth giving it a shot. Personally, I felt like something was missing from the film, as many of the themes (rural vs urban life, Chinese family values, guilt and shame) are trite. But the lead actor's performance and his ability to make me sympathize with his character were enough to leave a positive opinion in my mind the next day.

I'm not sure if and when this will be released in other countries, but I think because it's a co-production with Austria, it should at least be shown in some European countries. Maybe it'll even appear on Netflix eventually. If you have any other questions about the film feel free to ask.

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The story of a day

“There is an elephant in Manzhouli. It sits there all day long.”

And no matter how many people stab it with forks, offer it food, chide it or console it, it does not move. It remains stationary the whole time, throughout its life. It remains still even when life progresses. It remains still when time stops.

“An Elephant Sitting Still” is the first and last film by Hu Bo, who died by suicide soon after its release. It has definitely won "stuff" at film festivals but in terms of camerawork and filmmaking, An Elephant Sitting Still is hardly a masterpiece. It is bleak and grey, mostly the camera follows the heads of our characters as they walk. There is nothing special about it in terms of sound except when the elephant roars.

This entire story of 4 hours is based on a single day. It shows us four extremely different people: a high school boy with an unloving family, his friend who has an affair with the school dean, an old man who isn't given a home in his own house by his own son and a gangster man whose friend commits suicide. All these people are united in the bleakness they are trapped in, and all of them, on the very same day, witness death. And it's amazing how many deaths can occur in a day, and even more surprising is how plausible the story is.

At some point in the movie, I wondered if I was reading a suicide note. Something that is tragic and still and yet, moving forward with a purpose. The human life it fragile and fleeting, no matter what happens, no matter how much you are beaten down, life is forever going ahead and the elephant will still be sitting at Manzhouli.

Despite being bleak, “An Elephant Sitting Still” possesses a timeless grace. Despite having minimal dialogue where the characters seem to speak in broken sentences with even more left unsaid, the characters have a strange connection. Despite being 4 hours long, it is not boring.

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Beautiful backstory

I've said this in every one of my other Rurouni Kenshin reviews so far but I have to say it again: even though I didn't love the fight scenes in this movie as much as in the previous ones, this series still has the best combat scenes I've ever seen, in everything including cinematography, choreography, sounds, etc.

The best part of this was undoubtedly Himura Kenshin's backstory and how it tied into the flashbacks we got in previous movies. I was so intrigued by the new pieces of the story we got and it also meant that we got a really good antagonist — one that had personal stakes. I did think the antagonist wasn't as strong as Shishio and it kind of wish this movie had the grandeur of the previous movies while keeping the emotional depth we got in this one.

I also really liked the scenes of our gang being together and as always, I wish we had more of that and of character growth in the side characters, especially Kaoru, who had the most personality during Part I: Origins and seemed to only get more bland and weak with every subsequent movie.

Apart from that, however, I think this movie was perfectly cast and it really makes me look forward to watching The Beginning!

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A special kind of film.

This film doesn't tell a story, it shows you its message instead. There is hardly any kind of development yet the mood is so overpowering and the cinematography is so breathtakingly beautiful that it leaves a profound impression nonetheless.

The ratings are quite low, and in my opinion this is not surprising at all. This film is odd in that it has no real plot, there is hardly any dialog and if you expect romance you'll mostly be left disappointed. It shows you tiny snippets of characters' back stories, but leaves them unexplored and unexplained. The film gives you ideas about topics that are important and worth thinking about. However it doesn't explore them, only taking note of their existence and then leaves it to the viewer to come up with their own conclusions and thoughts about them.

This film avoids imposing opinions, it stimulates thought processes and thus it can be either very impactful or very boring, depending on how you approach it as the viewer and how much the addressed topics resonate with you.

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