Reviews

This movie could have been so much more... Spoilers!

My gripe with this movie is that it had the perfect setting to turn into a romantic or social message. But in the end, it ended up being neither. The main character does grow in some sense, but not entirely.

One example: The ML went through harassment himself while dressed as a woman, but he never directly addressed why he was wrong, just saying, "I am sorry," even when he got a stage to say it out loud. He apologized to several women, but it didn't feel like he understood why his previous behavior was problematic. His realization seemed surface-level. In addition, it is really hard for me to believe that he grew up with a sister and was raised by a mom and ended up doing what he did.

But the comedy was good and you can never go wrong with this guy! His acting was A+!!!

Read More

Movie Review

This movie uses a lot of camera work and close up to give a sense of eerie. Close by the victims as if we are the perpetrators yet we have no clue if we are. Honestly I didn’t really understand the idea of the movie.

19 levels of hell yet the main character only went through 6 levels because of the GM’s (game master’s) bias. Honestly I did enjoy the realism of the illusion: Gao Yuen. How the main character can just interact with him and we also had no clue he was an illusion. It felt so real to her that there were no sense that it was all fake. Even the room was the same.

The movie uses silence to create an eerie atmosphere as well as whistles and sounds that we tend to associate with fear and horror. Whistling, echos, abupt noises; many of these sounds are used and the character’s own breath caused me to feel like the characters were right in front of me.

Personally the acting was a little bad because I could see the actress trying to give that sadness act but honestly she just looks like she is in a romance movie, crying over a misunderstanding. Her lips remain juicy plump and she cries so gracefully. I did enjoy the movie despite that since it wasn’t really much to take notice of. Maybe because this is a 13 year old movie, I feel like the script isn’t polished and there is many weird things that I don’t think were counted for; The character development or the fully polished background story of how Dr. Yan got the idea to make a hypnotizing hell game. But enjoy it for its camera work sometimes. The closeup and Gao Yuen actor was really handsome. That’s about it :P

Read More

Doesn't live up to the expectation I got from the trailer.

I had so much expectation for this film, but it did not meet much of it.

Cinematography was the only thing I liked about this film, particularly the way some of the scenes were shot and how it showed the gaze of the characters, revealing each character's emotion and motive well.

Other than that, the plot was subpar, it set out to tackle the topic of marriage inequality only to be sidetracked by a jumble of badly written vomit of drama on top of drama another sob story of who is more pitiful. Exploring human desires rather shallowly, such as greed and lust.

Jingha and Thongkham relationship was rather unbelievable and just came out of nowhere.

The only thing that went as expected was Jeff's face card.

Read More

Everyone already left

The handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People's Republic of China in 1997 caused an emigration of citizens to the West. We see the very moment when the girl Wai prepares to leave the city forever, but she leaves behind not only home, school, but also people.

This is the story of the meeting of Tokio and Wai. They talk to each other clumsily in a foreign language, getting frustrated when they can't express their thoughts. We were drawn into their conversation, because we also try to understand what they are saying. Their friendship is a bit odd and uncommon.
A character of particular importance is Grandma. The director gently tells us the fragile relationship between the girl and her grandmother.

One of the visual themes of the film is emptiness. The director has styled the image through an intriguing play of light and shadow, showing in an overexposed photo abandoned city, a concrete pier, a house drowning in darkness and loneliness in a hospital. We see Hong Kong through the lens of a Tokio camera, and in this image everything becomes blurred, white, and without the detail. Against this colourless backdrop, the emotions of the characters are more apparent.

The film is a great visual journey through the love that takes on different forms: first youthful love of Wai, mature love of Tokio full of boring routine, love between granddaughter and grandmother. If you want to watch something slow, a small story with a artistic picture of the Hong Kong with a bit of sad nostalgia – Autumn Moon is for you.

Read More

Poetic

I don’t even know where to start. I thought I wouldn’t like this movie, it’s not usually what I like nor what I look for to watch. So, when I started watching this I didn’t know what I was getting into much. But I can say it’s a very good movie, so beautiful, so heart wrenching, your emotions will always be on edge. You will feel a lot. Me personally I get deeply into shows/movies to the point I feel like I’m in it. So when I tell you I felt all the pain and anxiety and everything else that was portrayed in this movie. I just don’t know how to put into words how this devastating poetic masterpiece is. It was just so beautifully portrayed, mostly the ending. The ending is what lowkey took my heart. It was just so… beautiful. So much was constantly going on. And at the end it just ended. But the small details make this movie so much better. The fact that in Hong Rim’s last breath he turned to look at the king. I just thought that part was so freaking powerful. Like omg. And how in the end it shows them basically being happy together, how it could’ve been. Now, this movie can be viewed differently by people, depending on how you think and how you perceive things. I do think the king was in love with him but he had toxic love towards him. I do think Hong loved the King and the Queen equally but he just couldn’t have both. I also think in a way this was like forbidden love. I don’t know. It’s kind of confusing for me to interpret how I see this movie as. But all I can say with reassurance is that is was absolutely beautiful and a masterpiece. Truly poetic.

Read More

When watching a road movie, there's one important point to consider: It's about the journey, not about the arrival.

This becomes very obvious in this film. The question of what Mu Ran will find when he arrives -- thee meaning of "Su Chen", who he is and where he is -- this is not the point of the film (also very obvious after a while).
The people he will meet on his journey, who live very different lives but are all part of the queer community, who will tell their stories about love and loss, about family and partnership, these people and their stories are at the heart of the film.

Mu Ran, and with him the viewers, will learn what it can mean to love. Will we regret having taken or not taken the opportunity to find happiness?

Read More

After appearing in the 2008 Thai television drama 'Ubatruk Karmkobfah', and in 'Likit Fah Cha Ta Din' and 'Raak Boon', both the 2012, and in the 2010 film 'Eternity', Pirat Nipitpaisalkul, known professionally as Mike Angelo, the former member of the Thai musical duo Golf & Mike, along with his brother, Golf Pichaya Nitipaisalkul, starred in the 2012 Chinese LGBT+-themed short film 'Love in the Water'.
Who would later participate in the Thai series 'Full House' (2014) and 'Kiss Me' (2015), and in their Chinese counterparts 'Wu Xin: The Monster Killer' (2015), 'Delicious Destiny' (2015), 'My Little Princess' (2016) and 'Mr. Swimmer' (2018), among others, in this film he plays Xiao Le, a university student who has it all: he is young, attractive and has just joined the prestigious swimming team at his school. But he keeps a secret: he is in love with Jia Liang, his best friend and study and sports partner.
After confessing her love and hearing her lover's rejection, Xioa Le embarks on a one-night stand, her birthday, after Jia Liang, following her sister's bold suggestion of cross-dressing him to see if Jia Liang cares about her him or by his gender.
At just 21 minutes, 'Love in the Water' manages to achieve a level of intimacy, intensity and sensitivity that most of the longer films I've seen never achieved. The film points out all the turmoil, conflicts and sexual tension of a young man in love with his best friend with disconcerting acuity.
The dialogues between the two main actors are scarce and spontaneous, they seem more improvised than anything else. The camera captures most of the film during moments so natural and undramatic that their encounters, between deep glances and races around the university campus holding hands, have a magical and electrifying quality... in fact, it made me goosebumps In my opinion, this is the most effective way to portray a relationship that is both so fragile and passionate.
Starting from a dramatic situation as discouraging as not being accepted by the person you love because they see you as just a friend or because they are not interested in maintaining a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex, the director of 'Love in the Water' chooses dramatic material that already has its genre implicit and decides not to overload scenes that already have intensity.
To narrate it on screen, the director uses a linear chronological structure of cut sequences, with that sequence shot in which the camera follows Xiao Le during his birthday party, dressed as a girl, singing his love, approaching Jia Liang to dance with him, while he dances alone in the middle of the stage. All this, while listening to beautiful musical themes, such as the song "Fool", by Yoga Lin, and others performed by the same actor Mike Angelo.
He then breaks down Jia Liang's hurried departure into medium shots and details after confirming that the person he has been dancing with is none other than Xiao Le.
The short film continues with alternating sequences in which close-up shots and more open shots convey the evolving point of view of the two protagonists. A general overall shot that swings from comedy to drama with a simplicity and effectiveness that demonstrates the cinematographic mastery of its director.
In other moments of the film, the director gives importance to the characters of Xiao Le's sister who, aware of his feelings for his best friend, advises him on how he should act to win him over, or to the friends and fellow students of the two protagonists, who are also somehow aware of the feelings that one awakens in the other.
'Love in the Water' has its greatest weakness in a title that is poorly worked on in its evidence, although it may be effective as a commercial claim. It is a very worthy product that joins a wide list of Chinese films with LGBT+ themes.
In particular, it reminds me of 'The Raccoon', a film directed by Tang Shi in 2016, with Weng Hai Bin and Wu Di as the leading actors, as it also reflects a friendship relationship in which a boy is in love with his best friend and it is not reciprocated, also taking place in a university in Beijing, the Chinese capital.

Read More

"Are you happy?"

Autumn Moon was a melancholy story of three lives in transition set in Hong Kong. The blue filter gave an added layer of existential angst to a 25-year-old Japanese traveler, a 15-year-old girl readying to meet her family in Canada, and her grandmother who knows that won’t be the trip she’s making.

Hong Kong teenager Lee Pui Wai and Japanese traveler Tokio meet on a bridge where he’s fishing. Tokio’s looking for a great place to eat, having been let down by his guidebook. Wai takes him to her favorite restaurant---McDonald’s. Later she brings him to the home she shares with her grandmother. Wai and Tokio communicate in broken English but Grandma doesn’t speak any and aside from asking his name, generously feeds him. Wai and Tokio strike up a friendship sharing their life experiences and the difficulties they are going through.

I was concerned this would be an age-inappropriate romance but there wasn’t a hint of romance between Tokio and Wai. Tokio had become involved with an older woman and Wai was in love with her classmate. Tokio went through women like a giant Pez dispenser. The casual sex didn’t bring any satisfaction, only reinforcing his alienation from society and himself. Aside from her grandmother, the rest of Wai’s family had already emigrated. Most of her friends had left Hong Kong as well. Once her family found a house, she would be moving. Grandma was the odd person out, unable to emigrate due to her age. The only trip she was planning on was to the Goddess of Mercy.

The available version of this movie that I found was badly degraded and cropped for television. Visually, I could see the potential spoiled by graininess and wavy lines. The dialogue could also be hard to follow when the friends were speaking broken English as there were no subtitles during the common language scenes. What still held up well was Tats Lau’s music which ranged from playful to mournful and always hauntingly beautiful.

Director Clara Law filmed the leads on different locations around Hong Kong. Though the crowded city is usually shown packed with people, Wai and Tokio always seemed to be alone. Surrounded by the unseen people and crowded buildings, they were desperately isolated in worlds of their own. The two suffered from having “trapped hearts”, unable to break through the barriers. Tokio wanted someone to get to know him instead of his 'wham, bam, thank you mam' anonymity. Wai struggled with being separated from her family and friends. Yet she wasn’t prepared to say good-bye to her grandmother and her home. She was also dealing with the complicated feelings first love creates in a young girl's heart and body. Grandma’s legacy lay in the refrigerator filled with secret, sacred ingredients that would no longer be needed.

Three generations of people and two different cultures were lovingly and respectfully shown. The characters dealt with loss, soul shattering boredom, and the unknown. Through their friendship and a private celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival, Tokio and Wai would discover how to revel in the small moments and find the courage and contentment they would need to travel the paths that led to happiness.

“When will the spring flower and autumn moon fade,
How much of the past do we know?
At my home last night the East wind blew…”

21 August 2024

Read More

"You didn't capture me, I came looking for you!"

Directed by Kao Pao Shu and written by prolific writer Ni Kuang, The Jade Fox had non-stop action and all sorts of crisscross double cross action. There was also a female villain with a tricked-out war chair. And it wouldn’t be an old school kung fu flick without a secret map!

(I’m just going to use the actors’ names for most characters as there are different names floating around). Kao Pao Shu is plotting to take over the kingdom with the help of a secret map. Her main bodyguard is Lo Lieh. Tien “Roc” Peng/The Jade Fox steals the map from her courier. Kao has Lo Lieh deliver an “invitation” at the end of a sword for Nick Cheung Lik to come to Fairy Land. Doris Lung is Lik’s fiancée and she tears up the Jade Fox’s House of Pleasure looking for his pal Lik. In the process of cleaning out the place with her kung fu, she meets the Jade Fox’s other friend, Iron Hand/Eddy Ko and a young prostitute’s son called “Come Again” who was trained in martial arts by a monkey! Whew! Oh, and the Jade Fox’s ex-lover who works for Kao is ordered to bring him to the villainess.

The story bounces around and bodies begin dropping by the dozens as the Jade Fox attempts to track down the head villainess with the aid of Come Again, Doris Lung, and Eddy Ko. Jacky Chen who played an ill-fated hero who unfortunately discovered the deadly traps hidden in Kao Pao Shu’s chair and livery was one of the martial arts directors. He and Chen Mu Chuan had their hands full designing fight choreography for several actors who were not accomplished martial artists. For the most part they succeeded, keeping in mind this was before all the CGI, slow-mo wizardry done now. One of the best and most brutal fights was at the end between two “good” characters. I enjoyed Doris Lung and Eddy Ko’s performances and fight scenes more than I thought I would. Roc Tien wasn’t too wooden and the child character wasn’t overly annoying. Solid wins in this genre.

The story bordered on convoluted but the cast mostly pulled it off when compared to other low budget Taiwanese kung fu films from the time. The biggest detriment to this film was that it needs to be restored. It was quite blurry and zoomed in too much. The only copies I could find were dubbed and the sound wasn’t always great. There were also advertisements showing it was for sale in South Africa during two different scenes in the movie. These later issues were not the fault of the filmmaker so I had to strain all of the distracting later problems out as best I could. My score is probably a little high, even when grading on a curve, but I really enjoyed the bonkers fights at the end as all of the hidden identities and schemes were revealed. As usual, this is only for people who enjoy old kung fu movies, they are definitely a niche genre.

20 August 2024

Read More

A gorgeously-shot slow burn that missed the mark one too many times

I prefer my horror subtle and restrained. I prefer building dread to jump scares and 80s gore. Chime purports to be exactly that on paper. The story of a man who, supposedly, is pushed to the edge by a kind of tell-tale chime.

The length of this short film isn't really the problem. The building dread is accomplished wonderfully. But the plot itself, the characters' identities and traits are such carefully guarded secrets that the ending was more of a "hang on, what?" than "oh, wow, I get it." Which latter clearly was the goal. I'd like to think that I can think fairly abstractly, but the way everything was cloaked made the ambiguity a little too ambiguous. It didn't feel like artful, skilled ambiguity. It felt accidentally too unclear, as if the way in which the director was trying to artistically guide us to the reveal was a little... off. Like a picture that's accidentally a little out of focus. I get it. I get the ending. But it was like we tripped and fell on it accidentally. As such it lacked all the emotional impact that the film was building up to that point. Like someone's telling you a joke and few seconds before the punchline they answer a phone call and by the time they come back to tell you the punch line you've already figured it out.

The other slightly off thing about this film was that a lot of the psychological dread and alarming events felt like horror for the sake of horror. I couldn't see how any of it served to push the plot forward. Looking back on it all as the credits rolled I kind of understood how it fit together, but I was giving the writer a little too much credit, I think. Why the main character was doing the things he was doing made no sense at the time, and thus was very shocking. But even when the credits rolled, even though I could kind of more or less guess why he did those things and behaved that way, there was never enough portrayed on the screen to back up the assumptions I was having to make. I feel like I, the viewer, did seventy percent of the storytelling work.

The final issue is the name itself. The chime figures prominently in the first act, but not for the main character. After that it's only suggested that he even hears it maybe once. We the audience only hear it three times and those times have only loose thematic connections to each other.

The general idea, the story -- insofar as I understood it -- was quite good. The director (about whom I know nothing) is obviously very skilled at this kind of theme. The dread and the discomfort was perfectly constructed.

Ultimately, even though the acting, directing, cinematography, etc, was so excellent and carried out with deft skill, the story was never presented well enough to do any of that -- nor even the story itself -- enough justice.

Read More

Unforgettable Horror

It’s been a while since I’ve encountered a truly great Asian horror film, but The Medium has restored my faith in the genre. Directed by the same brilliant minds behind The Wailing and Shutter - two of my favorite horror masterpieces- this film brings a haunting blend of atmosphere, setting, and escalating madness. Mink's harrowing descent into demonic possession is depicted with such intensity that it leaves a lasting impact. The portrayal of spiritual disintegration and the chilling nature of possession are masterfully done.

That said, be prepared for some deeply disturbing moments, including the deaths of a baby and a dog. These scenes are particularly tough to watch, and as someone who usually avoids films with animal deaths, I found myself fast-forwarding through these parts. Nonetheless, the film’s compelling narrative and persistent sense of unease make The Medium an essential watch for any Asian horror fan in search of a profoundly unsettling experience.

Read More

21th Century Girl

I don't know what to say, even though i watched this movie long time ago i decided to rewatch. I like giving myself pain, and i did a challange basically by rewatching this i believe.

At first it seems like a cute, highschool sweethearts rom-com movie but they had to put a damn plot twist, which in my opinion was unnecessary, we already had too much heartbreaks in the movie, all comfort we had was their cute moments.

It wasn't just the cute moments. It was all the second hand embarrasments, falling in love, time spent together, yet they all were rushed. Sometimes you think what would have happened if she never got the names wrong and if Bo-ra told woonho about her feelings.

Ending also leaves us with so many questions like:
"What happened to their friends after his death in the future?"
"Why did he act so cold at the start?" (I know about his POV, i just thought it was weird)
"How did she (Yeong-du) fall for him so easily? She only saw him for a second then fell in love"
"How did he die?"

They really wasted Kim Yoo Jung and Byeon woo seok's chemistry, i am still angry about this

Basically, this movie was "how to ruin a basic, cute and heartwarming romcom into a tradegy just to not have a cliché ending."

Cinematography was amazing, really makes you feel in 1900s, OST was cute too.

The way she never was able to read the letter and she thought he gosted her (well he technically did) were so annoying too. Netflix, when i catch you Netflix.

I loved seeing her in 21th century, but this movie broke me. They need to give me an explanation, just WHY?

Read More