It's well done -- but like the other Yu Ha film I saw -- Once Upon a Time In High School -- it's not at all uplifting, and not really emotionally moving on the first viewing.

Its faults lie in the screenplay. It's long on fighting, and short on more intimate scenes. It would have been a much better film if there had been more balance. We aren't given much opportunity to connect to the characters. The connections we make are either peripheral or intellectual. The viewer pretty much remains an observer standing outside the frame throughout the film, but what we see in that frame is sometimes breathtaking.

The cinematography and score are both really good. And all the actors do a fine job, but I think are short-changed a bit by the script's shortcomings -- or at least this cut of the scenes from it. (I gather a lot more footage was shot than was used, and a number of more intimate scenes that developed character and relationships landed on the cutting room floor in the final editing process.)

I'm not sure why Yu Ha chose to go for an +18 rating. There are 3 explicit sex scenes. None are absolutely needful for the plot.. An argument could be made that the first scene partially functions as character development and exposition, but it could have been handled quite effectively in other ways. Nothing in the sex itself really matters. And unlike The Green Chair, The Housemaid, The Taste of Money, Naked Kitchen etc-- sex is not part of the subject matter of the film. The sex scenes in Gangnam 1970 are explicit in the same ways as in Outlander, (but there the explicit sex scenes are integral to plot and character development) -- lots of nakedness (except for full frontal) and nothing to guess about in the who is doing what, and how, and to whom part of the sex.

In spite of it's flaws, it's a film that's worth watching. And because of its strengths it remains of interest in subsequent viewings. And for me at least it was more powerful the second time around.

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