Reviews

This is a miserable movie, and it will make you miserable.

Superior acting from the leads Ishihara Satomi, and Aoki Munetaka. It is no exaggeration that Ishihara spends about half the screen time crying or breaking down in tears. I can't imagine what it took to be that emotionally exhausted for the filming period. I can't imagine what it would be like to have your child go missing, but I imagine it leaves you searching for your sanity in a way that closely resembles what Ishihara portrays in her role as the mother.

There is very little, if any, levity to be had in this movie. Despair grows and continues throughout the movie and I found myself being emotionally taxed by the end of it. It's just setback after setback for the couple who are trying desperately to cling to any shred of hope that might come their way. It just always ends in more despair.

There is no happy ending here and the movie wraps up with no conclusion, a reflection of reality when a child goes missing.

(I'd love to just be able to ignore the rewatch value metric here. I don't think this is a movie you would want to watch more than once because it's A LOT, but giving it a low score also feels unfair).

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Tried to be chaotic and heartwarming, but didn't really come across that way

First off, this would've worked way better as a miniseries, there was just way too much going on for it to be a good hour and a half movie without it feeling like one character got too much screentime and an another got too less.

Second, making it a miniseries may have helped with getting the audience more invested in the characters because by the end, I didn't really care much about any of them. Maybe one or two, but they were focused on way too little for me to actually determine just how well they could have been developed.

Even the story came out very rushed and a little insensitive. The points they were trying to make and the things they tried to address were quite serious and genuine, and while there is a way to talk about them and develop comedy from other aspects, they pushed it all together and it just came out quite badly at times.

I love a good chaos comedy, but you need to do it well for it to be enjoyable and unfortunately, this didn't hit all the marks for me. Some better writing and longer runtime may have helped because I have no complaints acting wise. The rest? Should've been better.

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"War is fun when you're winning"

Casting Blossoms to the Sky is an anti-war film that took 2 hours and 30 minutes to try and make its point. Much was made of, “That which fills the gap is imagination.” Thus, characters spoke directly to the audience and ghosts walked about as if that was all very normal. This film was not what I expected after reading the synopsis. The victims of the 2011 earthquake and Fukushima disaster were almost an afterthought. Instead, the majority of screen time was dedicated to the 1945 bombing of Nagaoka a couple of weeks before the end of the war. The premise centered upon how fireworks and bombs are similarly made, both being explosives while one celebrates beauty and the other destroys it.

Rieko Endo is a journalist who decides to go to Nagaoka for two reasons. She wants to find why the town opened its doors to refugees from the earthquake/tsunami and nuclear power plant disaster. Her ex-boyfriend also sent her a letter inviting her to a play at his high school. While in Nagaoka she meets numerous people connected to the bombing from 1945 and the making of fireworks.

This is the type of reflection and healing film I would normally love, but I did not love how it was pieced together. Characters speaking to the audience was distracting, though it dissipated as the film went on. There was repetition upon repetition. Some scenes from the bombing and making of the school play were replayed over and over and over and over. It began to dull the instrument of storytelling. The flashbacks almost gave me whiplash. The flashbacks would bounce around 2011, then to the 2006 earthquake, to 18 years ago when Reiko was with her boyfriend, flashbacks to another woman’s breakup, flashbacks to the Boshin War, along with the history of making fireworks and their use in the area, and flashbacks among numerous people and events leading up to, during, and after the Aug. 1, 1945 bombing. The bouncing around and circling back was headache inducing.

“We have nothing to do with war.”
I still have no idea what Rieko was talking about when she kept saying this regarding her broken relationship. The acting was serviceable though Matsuyuki Yasuko did more posing than emoting. All of the ex-boyfriends involved didn’t exactly evoke emotion as there were no interactions with the ex-girlfriends for the most part. Characters spoke fast and earnestly. There were unicycles everywhere, not quite sure what they symbolized. The real and surreal were often intermixed.

You will need a strong stomach for the vivid descriptions of what fire and bombs did to the human body. While I applaud the pacifist agenda, there were times it didn’t come across very realistically. “If they could see us, they wouldn’t bomb us.” The Japanese soldiers could see the civilians in Nanking and had no problem mowing them down. The comfort women were mentioned and then just as quickly dropped. The Japanese soldiers saw them and sexually abused them in every vile way possible. If every gruesome detail had to be described during the bombing repeatedly and in Soviet Union POW camps, maybe the lack of humanity for the other should have been equally described. There were plenty of atrocities to go around. And that would have made the argument stronger. During war, terrible things happen to real people. People with families, friends, jobs, children, and dreams. No one wants to suffer horrible deaths or imprisonment. No one wants to be forced to do things against their will. No one wants to see their town and home destroyed. No one wants to see their children starve to death. Why not treat everyone with respect and work through problems with words? Even if we got rid of bombs people would go back to killing each other the old-fashioned way with guns, swords, arrows, knives, spears, clubs, rocks, and/or fists. The problem lies within us, that thing that must be healed. It’s more important now than ever as we live in a world with diabolical weapons. Director Obayashi already had my attention and concurrence with, “Be friendly to each other.” Would that it were that easy.

“We have to use the pain caused by war for peace.”
The Nagaoka officials tied the fireworks into a healing and memoriam display though it was traumatizing for some of those who lived through the bombing. Many modern veterans of different wars and skirmishes have similar PTSD reactions to fireworks—the fireworks might be pretty but they sound too much like bombs. In 2011 and 2012 there were firework displays honoring both the victims of Nagaoka and Pearl Harbor in both places which was a nice reaching across the ocean in a display of peace.

“There’s Still Time Until a War.”
To stop the war? Or live life to the fullest? Casting Blossoms into the Sky was a bold, imaginative effort to show the horrors of war and why war must be avoided. The film could have been trimmed by an hour and had a stronger impact for me. I began to feel like I was stuck in a death loop watching the same gruesome events over and over again. Instead of convincing me that peace was possible it made me feel that war, like death, is inevitable.

8 October 2024

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Short but emotionally packed

I loved this, simply put. 6 episodes of only 18 minutes each but was packed from start to finish.

The chemistry between Dong Hui and Ho Tae was truly outstanding! Hats off to the actors on that, in fairness, their acting was bang on throughout.

The cinematography was fantastic, slow mo"s at the perfect times, the intensity of the stares, the beauty of the scenery in general.

Soundtrack was equally great, music perfectly timed, subtle, emotionally evocative and not overused.

This was such a beautiful sad romance, two people in love and never realising it or being brave enough to voice it. The family dynamic broke my heart at Dong Hui's suffering.

I dropped the story point simply because i wanted a more definitive ending, sad or happy, i justed wanted not an open end.

Well worth a watch and because of its shortness, easy to rewatch.

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A heartwarming prequel

I came straight from watching Unintentional Love Story to watching The Time Of Fever, literally a day later. Luckily I was late watching Unintentional Love Story so The Time Of Fever was already all out and finished by the time I watched it! I absolutely loved this movie/drama, a movie split into episodes (it’s how I watched it). I knew it was a prequel so I knew it was Donghee and Hotae’s story beforehand, and what a beautiful story it was, with all the emotions combined. I love how they supported each other, Donghee was always there to aid Hotae’s wounds from being hit by girls and how Hotae was there for Donghee after his father. I just wish we could have seen a little more, maybe some more back story of Donghee with his family.

But overall, I really did enjoy this, I was in awe with the visuals, the emotions and the connection between the two characters. But I do wish it wasn’t a movie and it had multiple episodes like Unintentional Love Story, and I really hope in the future there’s another spin off with them in the future and we can get a full story of their future with multiple episodes!

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Summer Lemongrass

I watched this movie at the 2024 Busan International Film Festival.
After the screening, there was a guest session where the director, writer, and lead actors discussed the movie with the audience.

Overall, it's a youth romance movie, so the plot is fairly common—or I should say, very common.
However, the execution of the entire movie wasn’t bad. I liked it.

What I liked:
1. The male and female characters were portrayed as 'normal' high school students, without any over-the-top actions, childish voices, or exaggerated coolness.
2. The male and female leads spoke multiple languages—Taiwanese, English, Spanish, and French—throughout the movie. They’re polyglots, which made me envious!
3. The second male lead was also portrayed as a good character. His moment begging the vet to open the clinic to help the dog of the man the girl he loves cares about was his golden moment. He’s also talented in music.
4. The difficulty of long-distance relationships was realistically portrayed. They drifted apart slowly, breaking up without explicitly saying it.
5. In the reconciliation scene, some people might disapprove of the male lead’s actions, like saying the kiss was without consent, but I support it. His third wish came true. Sometimes, you don’t need explanations—actions can clear the grey areas.
6. The ending was cute.

What I disliked:
1. The title 'I Am the Secret in Your Heart' doesn’t seem fitting. 'Lemongrass of Our Youth' would be better. The English title doesn’t reflect the core of the story. Even by the end, the female lead didn’t know she was the male lead’s childhood friend. Or maybe the title implies that some secrets should remain secrets.
2. The movie’s focus on high school and college/work phases was roughly 2:1, which felt a bit unbalanced. Wanna see more of college-work era.

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Loved it!!

It really feels like I’m watching a movie from the 2010’s again. The plot is good and there aren’t any mind-bangingly frustrating miscommunications (ironically). It was such a fun lovely movie to me that I couldn’t really predict what was going to happen.

It’s by no means ground-breaking or anything but it’s not like every piece of media needs to be. I still enjoyed it and there were even instances I rewatched because of context given later on in the movie.

Overall, if you’re just looking for a simply good romance movie I’d definitely give this one a watch.

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What makes a monster?

Underground Monster’s poster looked like a cute kid’s movie. Don’t you believe it. Older children might be able to watch it but there were some scary creepy crawlies and two-legged monsters as well. This was a movie that couldn’t quite decide whether it wanted to take itself seriously or be a comedy so it threw a little of everything at the wall to see what would stick. It could be hard to tell what stuck with all of the trash heaps lying around.

Construction workers digging a new tunnel come across a cave filled with giant piles of trash. It’s not long before they realize the trash is hiding an even more giant monster. Not everyone makes it out of the hole. On the surface and down the road Xiao Jie and his father He Chi are spending time together. He Chi makes his living collecting junk and is divorced from Xiao Jie’s mom. When the construction worker’s truck speeds by, a crate with a large green egg falls out. He Chi picks it up to see if it’s worth anything. Ex-wife Wu Lin Na is waiting at his home and not happy that Xiao Jie is spending time with his dad. Later that evening, the egg hatches and mama monster comes looking for her baby.

The Underground Monster looked like a combination of Disney Mermaid’s Ursala and The Simpson’s Kang. The CGI was okay but not great. They did give the monster a very expressive face, especially after it kidnapped Xiao Jie thinking he was her baby. The bond between the two was endearing. The trash cave became crowded as both parents, a mad scientist with a beard so fake you could see the tape holding it on and his kookier assistant, as well as a group of vengeful construction workers converged with different goals for the protective monster.

The slapstick scientist and assistant ruined the mood of the film for me. While I was happy to see The Snow Monster again and the snow sharks from that movie (Snow Monster 2019), it was not worth the over-the-top acting by the two while the devastated parents played their parts straight as did the murderous tunnel workers.

There were a few cute and emotional scenes in Underground Monster between the child and monster. There were also some disturbing ones. The film drove home the point that humans and their propensity to trash the planet might be the true monsters. They were also the ones who wanted to kill first and ask questions later. The movie reminded me of the song from Beauty and the Beast:

“We don't like
What we don't understand
In fact it scares us
And this monster is mysterious at least
Bring your guns!
Bring your knives!
Save your children and your wives
We'll save our village and our lives
We'll kill the Beast!”

7 October 2024

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