Reviews

HK cinema is back baby!

I'm so happy to see a modern Hong Kong film that remembers it's a Hong Kong film and not a pretender to the throne, an action-packed homage to the nitty-gritty choreography-crazed neon-daze of '80s Hong Kong cinema, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is a long overdue and very welcome dose of ass-kicking goodness, hopefully signalling the start of a new wave. Packed with wall-to-wall bone-crunching, wall-shattering mayhem, dizzying feats of acrobatics and martial arts madness, the film might be a bit long but it's extraordinarily stylish, seamlessly edited and viscerally exciting. It's all directed to masterful effect by Soi Cheang, his nimble camera swimming through the walled city with a hyperkinetic frenzy that balances the excellent action that brings you closer to the edge of your seat with every punch and every kick and the misery enacted by neo-liberalism and cold vicissitudes of fate. A bittersweet dystopian canvas, but also the purest action machine built on the choreographed denial of physics. The cast is all excellent with veteran stars Louis Koo and Sammo Hung giving as good as they get, however, it's Philip Ng who makes the biggest mark as a cackling villain with supernatural abilities, even if his ascension to villain doesn't feel entirely warranted. The musical score by Kenji Kawai is utterly joyous and so typical of his masterful touch, I especially loved the use of Walking in the Air as part of the underscoring. If anything, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In proves that Hong Kong cinema is far from dead, and not every film the country produces has to be subjected to a Mainland committee's scrutiny. It's easily one of the best action films of the year and I'm annoyed it took me this long to watch it.

Read More

Lively and entertaining

I liked the 2nd movie better. Has more emotional moments and shows more closeness between Aki and Haru. The storyline are mostly similar to the 1st one.
The liveliness and humor is so enjoyable in the movie. The progression towards the end was good.
Aki's sudden realization after hearing Rikka's announcement was something expected, its sad that he had to hide it, but understandstable. The turmoil both goes through when they realize they have to live apart makes one sit on the edge. The hesitation, turmoil in the scene where Aki finally mentions he likes Haru gives mixed feelings.

Aki's photos in the gallery shows how much Haru cares of him and holds him in a special place in the heart. Haru's realization when Aki says he likes him was cute. Not to mention the final confession, thank god for including that. The story shows a deep caring loving relationship between the two.

Oh! not to mention, both of them makes the food looks soooo delicious 😋

Read More

A powerfully moving, heartfelt, and bittersweet portrait of love, life, and the cycle of poverty

I immediately love the color that permeates the film which are often seen on the clothing of all the characters, especially the debt collector Bo wonderfully played by Bright Vachirawit who disappears into his character that puts on brightly colored shirts to collect the interest due from his debtors. I really like that this story isn't just cut off at 90 minutes, the 2 hour runtime is put to good use really exploring the character dynamics of Bo and his various relationships. Bo and Im played by Yaya have fantastic chemistry as the relationship that's the heart of the film.

Bo is such a fascinating character, he didn't finish high school and he is capable of violence, but he's also creative and can think outside of the box to get his job done in unorthodox ways. He intimidates by his signature move of striking himself bloody on the head and later either finds jobs or gets more business for the people who owes money to pay their dues. He leaves their lives better than he found it. With Im , he tracks her down to her banker job where she gets suspended probably for making a scene that scared all the customers, so he comes up with a interest forgiveness system where he'll use his own money to pay off her interest depending on the scale of activities on dates that he's also using his own money to pay for. All the charm and charisma that Bright brings to Bo is what keeps all of this on the cute funny side that slowly melts Im's understandable initial iciness towards Bo as she sees him take care of her comatose father in addition to the one who was the one who found and got him to the hospital in the first place as well as going viral online for creatively helping his debtors get income to pay him. Im's life is also really relatable as even an university education still can't get her a job that gives her any financial stability. Her father was too consumed with debt to have been able to help her either and devastatingly is only able to free her from his own debt in death as she's able to get a refund on a cremation fund he had been paying for. She looks dreamily at the Hilton hotel as an idealized place that people like her will never step foot into in her lifetime. She opens herself up to happiness and planning a future together with Bo which is when things go wrong as he tries to take a shortcut to help her with one last job that of course goes awry and his boss screws him over which screws Im over with her life savings completely gone, leaving her being scammed to scammed others by her crush at the bank who also seems to keep her as a side piece, while Bo discovers his worsening health condition that he has no money to treat in prison. It's so heartbreaking that all of his head trauma both self inflicted and fights with rival gangs took a real physical toll on him, shortening his life as he helped others with theirs intentionally or not. It's truly chills in the scene where Bo faces down his old boss who coldly responds to his sincerely asking her to return Im's money, so he does the only thing that people like her understand which is to put both their lives on the line. Debtors always pay their debt. Just as the injury had built up in his body, so had the karma with the people he had help and they visit him once more to help with setting up Im's shop. He spends a happy time with the love of his life, his family, and his friends. The postmortem letter he leaves Im to cheer her on from the after life is really powerful, moving, and relatable. Treasure yourself, and if you don't know where to go or what to do, just stay still and breath, just get through the day.

Read More

"In the royal household, they regard their children as enemies"

This was a hard film for me to write a review for. The Throne told the events leading up to the explosive event in 1762 when King Young Jo took his troublesome son’s punishment into his own hands. Or at least part of the events, giving reasons or making excuses for Crown Prince Sado’s reprehensible behavior depending on how you looked at it.

Crown Prince Sado is called before his father after a possible aborted attempt to kill the king, something largely frowned upon. The king is in a jam because he can’t execute the prince for being a traitor because of the problematic law that states the whole family of a traitor would be judged, implicating the king and royal grandson as well. If the prince kills himself, his retainers and supporters are afraid they will be executed. Eventually, the king settles on locking the prince in a rice box with no food or water. The story then flips back and forth in time to explain how the two came to this moment of deadly impasse.

King Young Jo prided himself on his studies and discipline to Confucian ideals and decorum. Sado enjoyed art and hated studying. As the young prince grew up, the king became more disenchanted with the crown prince and more critical. When he made Sado a regent, Sado attempted to change taxation and create laws to benefit the people instead of the nobles. Rival factions were not amused and the king stepped in fearing a loss of power and prestige for himself. Regardless of what decisions Sado made, the king ridiculed him. And apparently because his daddy was mean to him, Sado snapped and became a murdering deviant.

In real life, Sado murdered a eunuch and carried the head around in his private quarters. He beat and raped the women in his circle and murdered many servants. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The serial rapist/murderer behavior or a distant critical father? In the film the Queen Dowager, his wife, and other women seemed to care for him and dote on him so he wasn’t without attention and positive affirmation. It felt like the film was attempting to drum up sympathy for Sado, but I dare say all of the people he murdered and raped would not feel much compassion regardless of the reason for his brutal and inhuman behavior. Glossing over his vicious actions seemed to weigh the scales without all the facts.

The costumes, wigs, and sets were all beautiful and luxurious. The Throne excelled in the poignant performances by most of the actors including Song Kang Ho, Yoo Ah In, and Kim Hae Sook. Song showed how the king was strictly disciplined in his own life, having no leniency for Sado’s more lax behavior. He also portrayed the king as distraught by the actions he felt had to be done for the country and to spare his grandson. Yoo brought out the complexities of this screen prince who wasn’t in a hurry to be king and had his own ideas for the crown. The dissent into madness was believable. Kim played the pivotal role of the Dowager Queen who saw more good in her grandson than her son did.

If I hadn’t read about Sado’s unbearably cruel behavior, I would have rated this film higher. Somehow leaving out the details seemed disingenuous when assigning blame for his actions to the king’s critical conduct toward his son. If you can block all that out and enjoy the film for the quality acting and cinematography, it is a stunning film to watch.

4 December 2024

Read More

10/10

I don’t know why this does not have a 10/10 rating … the rating do no justice to the movie … totally a must watch. Not only for bl fans but for movie watchers in general .. if birdy and ji han do not make your heart hurt ..you’re heartless 🩷


Everything I say from here is bullshit coz I needed 300 words to publish review
The pacing of the relationship was a little different than your typical BL, and the acting was on point. There are a few different reasons why I wouldn't consider this a BL, the most prominent being the absence of clear seme/uke (masculine/feminine) roles. The two lead characters are well-crafted, and the emotional complexity of their relationship far transcends most BL story lines. I would even consider going back to the theater just for one particular scene; which, although technically a sex scene, accomplishes everything without showing anything. I've been thinking about the passion and emotion of that scene all day.
I feel like this film includes all the great elements of a BL series, but removes the saccharine and adds a plaintive historical setting. The music includes a classic Taiwanese pop song as well as a new song, which includes the film's title. The inclusion of both neatly represents the time jump of the story. This film is a must-watch, and I hope it gets the international attention that it deserves. Both BL and cinema fans alike will enjoy it.

Read More

A MASTERPIECE

A masterpiece indeed, To be honest I'm kinda wanted more interaction about their ending, I felt being left behind by those scene, though their smile is an example of assurance that they ended up being together until to the continuation of their love story in "UNINTENTIONAL LOVE STORY", and also now I understand why they keep bickering each other, and the tatto Ho tae's has leave a remarkable back story, The Screenwriter has no idea that he created that we can call a “Masterpice", a bonus spoiler about the kissing scene they ate it, I felt that kiss was genuine, butterfly in my stomach in short.

Read More

A Different Perspective

This is exactly that, a different perspective but with the same ingredients. They meet in college. Weather the rumors as they move in together. Classed as a romance, this is definitely a drama with a very serious take on the prejudices of being different. In contrast with the later released 'in your feelings' series, this is the thinking version. With equal screen time, both sides of the relationship is revealed between a gay man and a fearless woman who refuses to cower to her male counterparts.

In both their relationships, at one time or another, they both deal with the consequences of not using a condom. In the pursuit of love and happiness, they both act unwisely. Their fierce bond tested from the fallout, they separate. One beaten by her jealous abusive lover, the other waking up too late to recognize what he had. They can only call each other. No one knows them as intimately as they know the other. Life has it's way, maturity comes and permanent choices are made.

This deserves the same level of awareness as the later released version. The acting is superb. On a smaller budget, the story is engaging, entertaining and very intense. His admission of losing an important love and the ensuing breakdown is felt. Had this been released much earlier, my belief is that this adaptation would have garnered more praise for the different perspective.

Good watch.

Read More

gentle and sweet slice of life (need a third movie)

Overall: the sequel is very similar to its predecessor with the theme of friendship and infusion of cooking/food into the story. I was happy we saw progression but a third movie would really be the cherry on the top. First aired in Japan June 2024. Aired December 4th 2024 on GagaOOLala https://www.gagaoolala.com/en/videos/4988/lets-eat-together-aki-and-haru-more-please-2024 (not available in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong or Macau)

What I Liked
- sweet and caring moments
- the cooking/food
- realistic to practice interviewing
- non cliched female characters
- avoided a common plot element at the end (i.e. technology exists)

Room For Improvement
- the voice over recap of the first movie
- thought there had already been some realizations in the last movie, wish we had seen more progress earlier rather than the very end

Read More

Coloured Lens

This was an old movie, released in 2014, I only picked this up now after so long was because ML used to be one of my favourite K drama lead and I found a source to watch it online.
Personally I used to cringe at such storyline with the emphasis on the over-glorifying of extra marital affairs (EMA). The fact to this story is that both leads did betray their spouses. And ML’s behaviour is no different from the older commander who was trying to take advantage of FL during the dance. The only different is ML is charmingly handsome and FL also has feelings for him.
However after watching this I realised that it really depends on what ‘lens’ you watch with. It’s actually a simple, beautiful, sad love story.
If one watch this with an emphasis on the ML’s story of a celebrated war veteran suffering from PTSD and how he was trying to navigate his life again after the trauma of war. He can’t celebrate his wins and he is tormented, and he discovered a dysfunctional way of coping is being obsessing over a desire at first sight that spark him to live again. And as the show progresses, one will understand why his obsession and desire was the only thing that kept him alive after war, similar to why a lot of war veterans developed alcoholism.
Hence it’s not surprising that he attempted suicide after FL tries to break up with him. Yet even he didn’t die, he was again not given another chance to be understood and recover, instead was punished by being sent back to war and die there. He has literally no second chance and no life post war except that glimpse of love desire.

So I am surprise that I do like this and how the story was told was quite nicely done. The acting were spot on and ML is still charming, although too good looking to be a war veteran. LOL!
So choose the lens that you are going to watch this with and you may just enjoy this differently.

Read More

The Grefg tailandés trata de deshauciar a una anciana de su casa

Ya lo predijo The Greft el plot de esta película : deshauciando a una anciana.

Tremendos papeloncios se hacen Usha (no la conocía pero me ha encantado su actuación) y Billkin (este man lo mismo te hace de gay que te hace de nieto youtuber que en principio quiere estafar a su abuela).
Me ha gustado mucho la película aunque se supiera que iba a pasar desde un principio.Las actuaciones han influenciado mucho porque la historia no es que sea el nova más. Me hubiera gustado que profundizasen más en el rollo de trabajar como cuidadores/estafadores para conseguir la herencia, me parecía una idea que se podía haber explotado mejor.
Se me hace poco realista como el nieto se puede manejar tan fácilmente entre los hijos. Vamos es que la madre le deja carta blanca y los dos hermanos entre que uno tiene deudas y el otro está centrado en su familia...
Me parece tierno como la abuela de acuerda y hace todo lo que le pide su nieto, desde el granado hasta lo de la cuenta del banco.

Read More