Reviews

Under rated

This is a movie which is weird in a way but its fantasy, comedy and reality all together. It’s the twist and turn of life put in a nice way. The acting is good , like seeing the daily life which for sure others hasn’t seen. It puts the problem in life into a much lighter way to understand. It was a feeling of what is this story’s ending that made me keep watching. It’ s worth the while. Chen Zheyuan is only as supporting role in this film , the first of film I saw him not as the main character. Love the last music used in this film, it reminds me of the sound of Outlander in a way but its enchanting . Had to finish the end credits to finish the song.

Leia Mais

The boundless promise.

Feng Ren is a Gushi/骨仕, an enigmatic, lethal sworn blade whose sole reason of existence is to protect the coveted Wuliang/无量/Boundless Heart Sutra. He intercepts a blind boy Po Xiao, who may just be a decoy or may be the true custodian of the Wuliang Heart Sutra and together, they flee the city. On their perilous journey they learn each others secrets. Underneath all the half-truths and deceptions between them, an inexplicable bond, an unspoken shared understanding and trust grows between then. For such a short length story, the actors' chemistry and the depth and complexity of emotions they conveyed shook me. Every twist deepens their bond and the boundless promise they make to each other. The important message of this story is that with great power, comes great responsibility. This is dark and heartbreaking wuxia but the break of dawn that pierces the darkness is blinding and immensely powerful.

Everything about this movie smacks of Guo Jingming's fabulous taste and hallmark aesthetics. If like me, you watch this after My Journey To You, it is quite clear that the drama expands upon many ideas in terms of style, plot and character design from this 37-minute movie. Feng Ren makes me think of Han Yasi and Po Xiao of Xue Gongzi. The narrative also explores how best to deal with a weapon of unaparallelled power. Due to its short length, the plot is tight with no unnecessary digressions and everything comes to a full circle at the end. It perfectly illustrates the power of a short story in how it captures the heart and the imagination with all that is left unsaid and untold. This is a simple, well executed plot that is a must watch and one that I am happy to rate 8.5/10.

Leia Mais

Love with a hopping vampire!

When hopping vampires come to town, who are you going to call? Vampire Cleanup Department! This Hong Kong production starred several older actors from the golden era of fists and kicks kung fu movies as well as two younger actors. The film had a few gruesome scenes but overall was a more lighthearted romance and coming of age vampire wrangler story.

Tim witnesses a vampire attack and after being bitten by a vampire and not transforming is recruited by the Vampire Cleanup Department. On a mission outside of town he accidentally transforms a gruesome water vampire back into her original form. Summer, the young vampire woman looks normal but is unable to talk except with the help of his phone which she had swallowed and hops like the rest of the vampires. He’s tasked with cremating her back at headquarters but instead hides her nearby. From there the story becomes about him training her to be more human. At the VCD, faster than you can say “wax on, wax off!”, Tim has learned kung fu from repeatedly sweeping the floors. He runs afoul of his trainers when he wants to help the vampires instead of killing them. A competing agency causes problems for the cleanup department when they steal Summer and attempt to lure her maker, a devilishly dangerous landlord vampire, so that they can capture him for research.

I was thrilled to see Toad Venom Lo Meng as one of the fight trainers who also loved plants. Yuen Chueng Yan played the priest who provided the amulets. Aside from acting Yuen spent much of his career as a martial arts director for numerous films. Chin Siu Ho as the trainer who was toughest on Tim, started his martial arts training at the age of 10. These three alone made my geeky martial arts loving heart tremble. Richard Ng played the director in charge of tech support and cremation. Babyjohn did a good job as the naïve, bumbling, vampire cleanup trainee who falls in love with a partially transformed hopping vampire. Lin Min Chen gave Summer a kind quality as she hopped about and learned more human traits, but wasn’t asked to stretch much acting-wise.

The quality of the CGI, vampires, and fights weren’t bad for this genre of film. Thankfully, the humor wasn’t overly slapstick. Though at 90 minutes the movie tried to do too many things leaving many issues resolved thinly or not at all. Vampire Cleanup Department wasn’t a blockbuster type movie, just a nice little Hong Kong hopping vampire story with a surprisingly heartfelt center to it.

10/12/23

Leia Mais

"never was there a mountain with no fog"

here's what the movie did well (aka the mountain):
- capturing the rural beauty of akita prefecture. stick around for the credits, frfr
- illustrating complicated feelings about your hometown, the things it does well, and the things it lacks. i was born and raised in one of the biggest cities in america, and i still identified with the different characters' viewpoints about how great or how sucky this small town in akita is. i felt like the movie was written by someone who truly understood what 'home' meant.
- creating strong secondary characters and supporting storylines. i honestly would have watched a whole movie of nara-sensei torn between honouring her family's wishes for her that keeps her rooted in her hometown and finding/accomplishing her own dream out in tokyo; or of ryota and hideo working together to figure out how to teach farmers to become florists to save the local economy; or of the okamoto family resisting and evading debt collectors as they struggled to keep their gas station afloat and their folk heritage relevant; or of the last graduating class of an about-to-close-down school banding together to throw an epic school closing ceremony - complete with the obstructive meddling of well-meaning teachers - pulled together and led by the magnanimous empathetic and no-nonsense sayaka. (real talk, i totally fell for sayaka as a character and nakajima sena as an actress. absolute highlight of the movie for me.) these varied supporting storylines were how the movie was able to squeeze in so many repercussions of rural flight and an aging population, and they held a lot more appeal to me than the main storyline, unfortunately.

we experience the entire movie almost entirely through the lens of akira, who moved from tokyo to this rural farming town. he likes to draw, but he's otherwise a gary stu-type of character, and i actually think this was a brilliant move. he allows the audience to receive those extra storylines in a manner that isn't too emotional or overwhelming. they are simply facts as observed by a young boy who has 0 investment in the town's trajectory.

here's where the movie lost me (aka the fog):
- honestly, it's a stretch to say this movie is science fiction. the eponymous light isn't even seen by the audience - though, i also consider this a good move. this way, the focus doesn't shift from the town to the source/meaning of the light. that being said, the movie could lose this whole aspect, and it wouldn't suffer at all. the only parts that would be lost are the weakest parts of the movie anyway. namely, maki.
- i'll be straight up and say i did not understand the point of her character. the most value she brought to the story was as the daughter of the okamoto family. she really didn't need to be elevated to... what, akira's crush? i really cannot tell why they needed to have a special or significant relationship because every contribution she made to akira's character could have been satisfied, or was already being satisfied, by another character. (also, the less said about her incongruous characterisation, the better). there is a supporting storyline that offshoots from their relationship that i found superfluous in the movie, as well.

all of this being said, i mostly enjoyed myself while watching. it's a great vibes-centric movie. good views, good music, good people trying to do their best. the entire cast did a g r e a t job, especially the schoolkids. i would have liked to rate this higher, but unfortunately the parts i disliked i /really/ disliked ?✊

Leia Mais

A film about losses/endings

You have to be in a certain mood to appreciate this film, where all the scenes are between our protagonist and only one other person that he's having a conversation with.

If you listen closely, you'll notice all the scenes involve talk of some kind of loss or ending - but they can be divided into chosen actions or ones that were not chosen/ involuntary/ out of one's control.

SPOILERS

Chosen actions mentioned: terminating a pregnancy, contemplating suicide, resigning from a job.
Unwanted losses revealed: death of a loved one, losing one's memory (due to dementia), end of a marriage, losing one's sanity

All melancholy topics - but I rather like how it's done. Actions or situations aren't depicted as right or wrong, they just are what they are. That's life.

Leia Mais

Absolut masterpiece that should've been included in the main series.

As I mentioned, it's an absolute masterpiece. As a Fanboy of fan boy (I'm so not funny) this was great!
I felt the emotions and everything.
I wasn't the biggest fan of the Nie clan leader in the series because he always felt a bit flat to me but this made everything better!
The CGI is a bit wonky and silly but it doesn't really take away.
The music was beautiful I almost cried, even though the flute playing is timing wise even worse than in the series (which I thought to be imposed).
The acting was phenomenal and I will 10 outta 10 watch it again.

It's 100 times better then it's counterpart 'The living dead'(even though I enjoyed that too).

Leia Mais

Une jolie romance intemporelle...

C'est un film dont s'est inspiré "A little thing called first love", le cdrama avec Lai Kuan Lin et Zhao Jin Mai. Ce drama a été un de mes premiers cdrama et comme souvent possède le goût unique de la première fois. J'étais donc curieuse de sa grande soeur, plus âgée.
Bien que j'avoue que le drama a ma préférence, pour les raisons que je vais développer en même temps que ma critique, le film a des points positifs et surtout a réussi à me surprendre ce que n'a pas fait le drama.

L'histoire reste inchangée dans les deux versions, et le film commence de la même façon. J'avais des doutes quant à l'évolution de Nam. En effet, dans la version chinoise, la transformation et l'évolution de Miao Miao est progressive et prend du temps à se mettre en place. Qui plus, le format des épisodes a permis une meilleure compréhension des protagonistes et nous voyons leur relation progresser, grandir au fur et à mesure que le temps passe. Le drama ne fait pas l'impasse sur les années de lycée ou universitaire et nous prenons plaisir à suivre leur parcours. C'est pourquoi, un film de 1H58 me paraissait dérisoire et difficile à nous pouvoir nous faire ressentir tout cette évolution. Que nenni!
Malgré le peu de temps dû au format par rapport à la version chinoise, la version originale s'en tire plus que bien! L'évolution et la transformation de Nam a été progressive et d'un tel naturel que je me suis retrouvée à penser bêtement "heu, à quel moment a-t-elle autant changée??" Alors, oui, nous voyons le processus mais contrairement à "my calories boy" par exemple où la transformation est soudaine, ou encore dans "my Gnangnam beauty" où nous ne voyons pas du tout la transformation, ici nous participons à la naissance du papillon, non seulement physiquement mais aussi mentalement. C'est extraordinaire, limite, nous la voyons grandir et mûrir en 1h et des brouettes. C'est donc un point que je salue tout particulièrement.
La deuxième chose parfaitement réussi est la romance entre Nam et Shon. Sincèrement, lorsque la scène de la déclaration arrive, je me suis dit "heu..... ils ne finissent pas ensemble???" par ce qu'à aucun moment du film nous ne voyons une relation entre deux, une étincelle ou un semblant d'intensité qui aurait pu me donner des papillons au coeur. Rien. Nada. Je me suis dit "heu, c'est une histoire à sens unique ce truc..." ou bien ils vont nous faire une fin pourrie, genre il se rend compte qu'il l'aime et blabla, le truc classique pour expédier une fin en 2 minutes chrono...Et puis vint, cette déclaration ratée, et l'après déclaration. Et là, je le dis carrément, ils ont réussi à m'avoir. A tel point qu'en ai pleuré d'émotions. Ouais, faut le faire, une blasée de la vie qui a tout vue ( du moins qui le pense) s'est faite avoir en beauté. Je n'en dirai pas plus, mais la fin m'a vraiment vraiment vraiment touché!!!!

C'est un film qui m'a sincèrement plus surprise que le drama chinois. Et qui m'a rappelé le moi de mes 15 ans. 15 ans et tellement amoureuse du plus joli garçon du collège. Sur son skate, toutes les filles se pavoisaient à son passage. Et la gamine que j'étais, maladroite, avec ses lunettes et sa coupe au bol, n'en faisait pas moins....Un premier amour, totalement fou, et qui aura duré 6 ans. Une histoire digne d'un drama entre une gamine insignifiante et le plus joli garçon du collège, une histoire qui m'aura aussi permis de me transformer, de devenir aussi un papillon....Que l'ayez vécu ou pas, peu importe, si vous aimez les jolies romances, n'hésitez pas à donner la chance à ce film touchant.

Leia Mais

Fluffy, heartwarming story

This is a liveaction of a manga and light novel with the same title, but as someone who didn't read nor the manga and the light novel before, this review based entirely on my impression about this movie.

This is the best movie so far, in 2023 for me. At first, I thought this is just a romance movie, hence when I saw the grotesqueries in the beginning, I thought I've clicked on the wrong title ?.

This is romantasy movie. And full of fluff. Kudo acted like jerk at first, but he redeemed himself in the next day, and he apologized. He's such a green flag!

The movie is a bit fast paced, and I found that their story is a bit rushing. In a blink of an eye, Kudo already cared for her, just from her hands and tears, for me. But their chemistry is truly amazing. I loved how he just burned the house just to find Miyo, I loved how he cared for her, gave her a house she deserved, long long ago.

I didn't really satisfied with the ending. The emperor is such an evil guy, I hoped more bad ending for him, but well, he was already on his deathbed. I shed tears, also, when Kudo use his sword to his comrades. In the end, it's only his life, or his comrades. The story is beautiful, and so Kudo and Miyo's heartwarming story. In the end, Miyo got all she deserved.

Leia Mais

Beautiful mermaid man - YES!

I liked the premise of the plot. It promised a chinese fairy tale with boys love and I was hooked.
Long hair, fine Hanfus, wonderful places.
I really enjoyed the wuxia vibes and the acting was good, so sometimes I really forgot that I was viewing a piece of drama. The desire of Minister of Criminal Justice was clearly felt.
The red sheets.... damn, that was such a beautiful artistic representation of physical intimacy.

Cinematographic it was a joy to watch. And even if the story had it's holes, I liked it, so I could oversee them.
It's a story, finely told, between the lines. The sadness and the longing has catched me.
Okay, it's an open ending, but that will let room for fantasy.

Only one thing drove me to despair: The wig installation killed the illusion.... guys, the glue... I cried...

watched it on YouTube (no longer available)
now on GagaOOLala

Leia Mais

Chaotic and Fun Rom Com

I was really excited to watch this movie and was lucky that it was showing near me with eng subs and it did not disappoint. The first half of the movie you see the couple bickering and describing how much they hate each other. It was so chaotic and funny, especially the way kang ha neul and jung so min deliver their lines. Jung so min's character could be a lot harsher and at times, I was like why is she so mean, but I could also understand her character. The second half was just as enjoyable as you watch them try not to fall back in love with each other.

I think the way the story unfolded was really well done. You could see how this once happily married couple got to the point of hating each other by allowing all the bad memories overtake their good ones.

If you enjoy rom coms, you will love this one. The acting as you all already know delivered because it's kang ha neul and jung so min. Even the supporting actors were great. I thought the one who played jung so min's sister did a great job, I had only seen her in Duty After School as I think she's still a relatively new actress but she was funny. I laughed out loud so many times as did the audience in the theater. It was a rom com in it's true form.

Leia Mais

"Truth and falsity mix in this world"

Taoist Master: Kylin was a sequel in the telling of Zhang Dao Ling’s story, the founder of the Way of the Celestial Masters sect of Taoism. In this direct to video film Zhang was not only searching for the root of the Tao, but also the mountain god credited with scaring two hunters to death.

The cinematography of the mountains and river where the story takes place was lovely. Disappointingly, the story lacked the same care. Zhang and his disciple Wang come to Mount Yun Jing during their travels. Two men were found dead on the mystical mountain. Determining they were scared to death, Zhang promises the mother of one of the men that he will find what killed them. From there he meets a corrupt official, the Drug Master and his crew, the Elder, a man driven insane by the mountain god, and a strangely wise beggar. Zhang Dao Ling sets to discovering the secrets of the mountain and the Tao.

Taoist Master felt more like a very special episode of Scooby Doo about the dangers of magic mushrooms. Aside from Louis Fan’s ZDL, few of the other characters were memorable. There were a couple of fights but they were ruined by slow motion and stop motion shots, or overcranked shots, and way too close of close-ups. What could have proved to be an interesting fantasy tale was brought crashing down to earth in Scooby Doo fashion. The villagers at one point all but said, "meddling kids/priest!" Full disclosure, I love spiritual dramas whether they are about my faith or not. I’m fascinated by early pioneers who walked the earth or sat on mountaintops or meditated under a tree and would have relished this short film if it had been more about Zhang’s spiritual enlightenment. The writers tacked on that element after the underwhelming mystery was solved:

“As long as you have a heart for the Tao, you understand the world.
The mountains and rivers are not under your feet but inside your heart.”

10/11/23

Leia Mais

To shaman or not to shaman

It's technically a generation battle of shamanism between an evil mystical being and the Cheon clan, led by the untalented grandson of the chief shaman for revenge, overall it has great visual effects and cinematography. However the direction of the storyline somehow felt lost, it's using a mix of both practical combat and psychic powers for the fights, which gets muddled on whether the movie is trying to be tactical or mystical, because even the resolution part gets the same treatment. Just like its intro part when they're showing how shamanism is a con with staged props to scam money, but then afterwards the whole movie turns out to be a huge shaman battle, it's quite contradicting at some point.

Leia Mais