Flaming Cloud (2023)

Does true love exist?

That's the whole premise of the movie. The deities bet if it exists or not by cursing a random human child.

Sangui is adorable and you just want all the good things to happen to him but the poor guy is cursed and only trouble finds him. He wants to find his first love but he is scared because he thinks she thinks he is a freak so he first wants to break the curse.

On his journey, he meets this weird girl obsessed with wanting to find a cursed prince and becoming a princess. I genuinely though she might kill him at some point while she tries to break the curse. She took the break part quite literally. I liked how they resolved this, it was cute.

Then he meets a witch but she is not actually a witch, she just can't sleep. I loved their friendship and the way they helped each other. He helped her sleep and heal and she showed him his curse is not that bad.
Regret is also a curse. I loved that line.
Her story is beautifully heartbreaking.

I like how everything is connected in this movie with lines we might not notice immediately.

The whole movie has a soothing and warm vibe. The music is beautiful and fairytale like. I can't explain how much I like music in this movie.

This is not a romance movie, it's a movie about healing and finding yourself.

Overall, I recommend it. It's cute.

Read More

Very Disney esque

I wouldn't say I liked it, but I wouldn't say I hated it also. It's just "eehh... it's aight" because I rarely watch Disney-esque movies anymore unless I'm forced by my sister or cousin.

The story was fine, but they really took their time on the childhood part, I was like "They are carefully setting up the story, huh?" it's not like fast-paced random flashes of scenes and then time skip to teenager. Once you get past that, it'll start rolling, but then again, once it got to the witch part, they kinda got stuck, In my opinion, the writer kinda overwritten that part, because they spent so much time in there, by the time that finished, the ML was like "Oh yeah, I forgot what my true goal was" and then resumed rolling the story. To be fair it kinda helped with ML's growth, but again that part was just too long for me because by the time we got to FL, she barely had any screentime for exploration, It was just like *snap* *snap* *snap* things started happening.

As for the characters, I don't know... no one really stood out to me, but they are all funny, I'll give them that. I guess, just to pick someone, probably the most memorable would be 'Yu yu' because of the things that she kept doing in order to satisfy her own desires, it looked horrible on paper, but they came out as funny moments on the movie, and to be honest, I was just here because of her actress 'Zhou Ye'. ML, 2nd FL, and the Witch had good dynamic; as for ML and FL, I didn't really feel the chemistry between them. That child actor for ML at the beginning was good despite his age. I was amazed.

The acting. I didn't really notice it until I got in deep, but it felt like I was watching a theatrical play, add some singing scenes, and then you got a western-like fairy tale movie. Like I said, this film is like Disney-esque. When I realized it, I was like "Yeah, I'm noticing it now, it feels like they are acting like they are in a theater" Now, I'm not implying that as bad, but it just felt like a change of pace for me.

So yeah... overall, it's aight. I would probably enjoy this when I was still into fairytale stuff.

Read More