Reviews

Very Interesting Concept!

I wasn't planning to watch this movie unlike the other MMFF 2024 movies I watched but the trailer and the description of the plot intrigued me.

I thought the creators of the show have a great imagination. It's not impossible that the uncolonized alternate Philippines would look like how this movie presented that alternate world. This uncolonized alternate Philippines also makes a great setting for the main plot that is shown in this movie.
The main plot (Vic Sotto's youngest daughter being kidnapped as the main rising action of that plot) requires some plot holes though for it to actually work. Like why couldn't Vic nor his youngest daughter somehow find a way to communicate via technology to talk and find each other (especially after Vic's Sotto escape, surely she must have somehow know at least someone's number from her palace)? Plus I couldn't help but noticed the Spanish inspired Tagalog words present (ex: bote) if the Philippines has never been conquered (I do understand the presence of English words as it seems that US/UK are still powerful countries in this alternate universe).

The actors are all good. While Vic Sotto is not the best actor here, he was believable enough in his role. Cristine Reyes is really effective as a surprise villain as is Sid Lucero as a suspected villain. Sue Ramirez has good chemistry with Piolo Pascual, but I actually prefer Piolo's chemistry with Iza Calzado (maybe it has something to do with Iza being one of my favorite Filipina actresses plus the fact that she and Piolo are both tall and have a closer age to each other). Cedrick Juan has a cameo and his performance is a highlight.

9/10 for this

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Could make an interesting series

This very short movie of only 9 minutes features what I feel could be a very interesting starting point for a good romantic series. I liked a lot the dynamic between the couple and the idea of the game they play together as well as its consequences.

Production felt very indie in a great way, with some beautiful shots of the city. The acting was quite good even if it is a bit short to judge the full range of skills of the limited cast. Music plays a relatively important role in this short film, it was pretty effective at complementing the vibe of the movie.

I would recommend this to people that enjoy short film. It has a pretty interesting plot in a short span of 9 minutes.

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Had a great time with this film, nothing new but absolutely solid and a good watch.

The long and short of it: There's no new ground broken for sure, it's a classic J-Horror movie and you'll get what you ask for. Recommend it for sure though all the same, it's a perfectly good film to enjoy. Might not be scary to everyone, but even though it wasn't I had fun. Worth a watch if you like horror and are okay with gore, recommend that you avoid the trailer, it gives away a sequence that would have done a lot better without watching it to leave it as a surprise (eg me who watched it). Make sure to look for the microwave in the beginning also, very funny completely taped to the wall.

Long review into more of the nitty gritty, direct story spoilers avoided:
Its highlights were absolutely the acting, though I can't include the main character in that compliment sadly. I think she was a bit miscast because she doesn't exactly have much face acting behind her. She has 3 expressions max before it's back to default which is a shame because her body and voice acting were good. She did make a good attempt but it was a bit bothersome that she didn't really show much panic when something extreme had happened. Absolutely amazing performances with the rest however, Kazuyo, Shinji, and Yutaro (especially Yutaro, really you could feel the fear that was creeping into him and how terrified he was) being the highlights, stellar performances.
The bloody sequences were done interestingly and, though maybe not unique to the genre, did serve well and were mostly unexpected when they happened. Felt like they shook it up each time and you got more and more progressively violent. The VFX was well done and gave some good visual scares, though the specific eye used gets a bit dull after seeing it over and over again, I wish they varied it a bit more. The scenery has quite a bit to chew on and is shot pretty great most of the time, with some real artistic work done into it, impressive stuff.
Though it's a horror movie, it doesn't quite make you jump out of your seat often. 1 or 2 scares got me but that was it. It was good at setting the dread for the characters involved, but it didn't exactly make me feel much personally. Might be a case-by-case basis however, conclude what you want from it.
A minor annoyance of how perfect they had to make the main character's nails be, they look *too* pristine for the whole movie, but this is just a really small nitpick
The ending was a very good twist honestly and I appreciated what it did. It was surprising and unexpected, leaving you with a good send-off, though I will avoid mentioning how.
In conclusion, I recommend it a lot, please do go watch it if you like j-horror, just don't expect to be terrified by it. It gives a lot else to work with to enjoy otherwise and is a great time to watch especially with friends.

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Low key and laid back reunion

As a 20th anniversary celebration of one of Super Sentai's best teams, Fireball Booster is a surprisingly low-key little outing, granted the Dekaranger squad already had their big emotional reunion 10 years prior so I wasn't expecting anything on that level. For the most part, this plays a lot like one of the series' more traditional adventures, one that doesn't strive to tell a more "mature" story, instead opting for just another day in the life of our favourite Space Police. It helps that main series writer Naruhisa Arakawa returned to pen the film, alongside veteran Super Sentai director Katsuya Watanabe, the writing is hilarious and production values are to the same high standard I've come to expect from this era of tokusatsu filmmaking, it doesn't miss a beat. However, the main shake-up coming into Fireball Booster is the introduction of Rui, whose addition proves to be another example of a V-Cinema film putting forward a good idea but not having enough time to let it properly develop. Regardless, it's always a joy to see this cast together again; although I get the suspicion they must live rent-free in Toei's basement given how they are almost always ready to swing into action whenever asked, even coming out of retirement in Tomozaku Yoshida's case. It's something Saban would never be able to do with Power Rangers, even if the cast of SPD is more than up for it, he's too tight-fisted to ever let that happen.

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Not my cup of tea : it went above my head

The story is very simple but I think the title of the YouTube English subtitled video for this short movie spoils a bit what might have been left as an interrogation point for the viewer. Not sure what were the intention of the writer regarding that aspect of the story. Overall, it is a gloomy and dramatic story which did not really interested me.

The internal voice of the main character was I think supposed to be poetic with a juxtaposition of saxophone and piano music. But it absolutely did not work for me. I felt totally detached of what was happening on screen and what the character was saying.

I would not recommend this to people. I found the story pretty bleak. It is a very short movie of 13 minutes, so you might want to give it a shot and make your own opinion on it.

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You'll cry

This movie was so emotional and heart touching. I've never watched something that made me see something different in life. The emotions and actions that carried within this movie was so good. This movie is very special.
A poem I made for this movie.

In a hospital where dreams reside,
Two artists' paths began to glide.
Through sketches soft and colors bold,
A love story started to unfold.

Challenges came, as shadows cast,
But through their art, they held steadfast.
With every stroke, they mended pain,
In each other's hearts, they'd remain.

The final piece, a masterpiece,
Their love immortalized in peace.
Drawing closer, hand in hand,
They found their place, a promised land.

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Too short to really exploit the potential of the story

This very short BL movie (only 11 minutes) depicts the unexpected hookup of a guy with the twin brother of his ex. Does it sound messy ? Yes. Does it sound interesting ? Yes (-at least to me). Unfortunately, despite me finding the idea interesting, there is not enough time to really exploit it. The short movie has an interesting twist as well but again, it is too short to really make something ultra impactful of it.

The acting was relatively average, nothing really outstanding but I think it might be due to the format. The actor playing the twins managed to create two characters that felt distinct enough but it could have been better. That's said the script was minimalist enough to not have that much to play with. Production value felt limited, not a lot to see there but suitable for the format. Music was also not memorable at all.

I would not necessarily recommend this to people unless you are looking for a short BL with a messy premise. I'm left to wonder if a slightly longer format would have help amping the stakes and emotions for the characters.

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The Film Devours Its Own Message for Tasty Visuals

Imagine a touching story about a farmer's daughter and her favorite goat. They're pals. But one day she learns her Dad sold this goat for money and she's angry. So she goes on a quest to the city to get her goat back.

That's basically the story of this film, but this version of the story is injected with fantasy, fantastic CGI, animal rescue weirdos, corporate psychos, and frankly as many chase scenes as they could manage to infest what should have been a simple touching story.

I watch C-Dramas mostly. The main reason is that they understand LESS IS MORE. The Koreans have spent too much time watching our Western films and when they try to please us -- these lose me.

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A film that has something in it...

A film that has something in it that I can't exactly define from my inner perspective, gentle, light and essentially simple, about the beauty of life and individual moments, fragments of life that are not always completely clear. I perceive it not as a short film, it is exactly on the border (40 min), but as a feature film, which was also awarded at the Seoul International PRIDE Film Festival in 2021. I also appreciate that the guys were chosen realistically, they are not handsome guys from a poster and I don't mind the slightly open ending at all, on the contrary, I like the film and its mood ...

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The most nothing movie one could see.

I don't think I can quite articulate fully how much of a boring film this is except for ironically laughing at some terrible line delivery and bad effects. It made me feel like I wanted to write about how bad it was however so it did *something*.
Short review: Don't watch, It's really not worth 1h 40 unless you want background noise that doesn't really matter.
Long review with full movie spoilers: The opening was the coldest of cold, interesting somewhat but it leaves much to be desired. As the movie progresses, however, it just continues to not deliver on any kind of interest except for flakes of what one would *like* to see, but don't get done or thought of.
The whole plot can just be solved by characters just shutting their mouths and not talking, but no we *need* to have these people killed by them being stupid and blurting out her name. Sometimes in films that's fine if you can see some cool effects or other parts of a film to get attached to at least, but this doesn't even deliver on anything at all. Somewhat decent makeup work but that's about as much credit I can give. The exploded eyes don't *quite* look right but it's nothing goofy bad, just that you can kind of tell it's not real.
The director was *not* good so everything else tumbles down with it, for example, usually good actors in other series who are featured in this give some really bad performances. I've seen Inaba Yu give some amazing performances in Sing in Love and other films/series, but it seemed rather obvious he wasn't given all too much to work with or given little to no direction.
The writing was really something else in terms of how much it missed it's own mark of what it tried to be. None of the characters have much behind them except for the reporter and it's a bit ridiculous how little anything happens to any of them of interest. You just get told something happened either to them or about someone, and go " what? " before it moves on and you don't get anything else. Haruo's conflict with his brother gets brought up twice in such small segments, and then we never see or hear of any of that again, it's like that for basically everything that happens. There's even a whole character death that happens that you don't even see and just get told about in passing after the fact, which was stupid? I genuinely had to ask the friend I was watching it with if I hadn't just gone insane and somehow blocked it out of my brain. It's almost like they couldn't get the actor back to do the scene so they had to hurridly pretend it happened.
Generally how the writing went is that it tells a thing to your face, expecting that to be enough to make a character have background, and then it's never spoken of again and neither do characters reflect on it.
As just a personal opinion, I believe it suffers with having too much to get done in it's runtime, something that may have been nicely fixed if they took out the amount of characters involved and simply let the audience have more time to settle into their character. There are gleams of what could have been in there but none of it comes to reality so you're left with a deflated balloon of a movie.
The ending was rubbish, as, quite literally, it just ends with no significance other than the implication that the main guy dies perhaps. Just a cut to credits. Nothing else. The concept of her hitting her head and forgetting the demon's name and what experiences she had with Haruo was good on paper but executed so awkwardly. The taste of the burnt fish was also strange to have been the thing to come back since she's known her own friend who died at the beginning for much longer. Having a callback to the friend would have been nice rather than her promising she'd remember her and then clearly not doing so for the whole rest of the movie's runtime (unless this is a metaphor of some kind in Japan to taste fish or whatever it was, then feel free to correct me and I will amend my review).
In conclusion, It's a mess of a movie and super not worth your time unless you want to see it as mildly ironically entertaining. I had ironic enjoyment out of watching it by giggling about it with a friend of mine, but man that's 1h39m I'm not getting back. Don't bother with it. Stay clear.

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Interesting Plot but not enough time!

So i really love the plot idea tbh, i would've loved it to be way longer ofc and deeper, there were a lot of subplots that could've been explored more in depth & i would've liked more screen time of the MC's and their chemistry. I'd like to see such a similar plot in another serie~


I was also shocked to find out that the MC's+ side characters are in a real Kpop group together hahaha🥰


the acting is okay, its the first time! (KB seems like a good potential to get into acting i think? with more practice he could get very good!) i would LOVEE to see more of the MC's maybe in another drama? :3 their chemistry is really good

overall you can watch it for passing time, its cute and short!


if any of the group members read through reviews, you did great! fighting! 💞


support the irl group! they're great :)

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