Reviews

Electric Shadows was a love letter to Chinese cinema as the main characters built their lives around movies. The film jumped around in time showing how two people’s lives intertwined and were destined to meet just like in the movies.

Mao Da Bing is a water delivery boy and in a rush on his bike to make a movie’s showing. He accidentally knocks over some bricks and a young woman clocks him upside the head with a brick and then destroys his bike. At the police station she hands him her keys and tells him to feed her fish by writing on a piece of paper. When he enters her apartment, he sees that it is an ode to film and especially Street Angel with actress Xiao Xuan. He finds her diary and begins to read about her life and how she ended up where she is. As he reads her story, Da Bing also discovers they share a childhood connection.

The flashbacks to Ling Ling and Da Bing’s childhood were sweet and an innocent exploration of friendship and films. Before and after this segment was not as entertaining and contained one too many melodramatic and coincidental moments for me. As a cinephile I can understand the children’s love of film and the role it played before television took over. What I didn’t understand were some of the mom’s inconsistent decisions later in the story. Another mystery for me is what kind of job did Ling Ling have to be able to outfit her apartment like a mini-cinema? Da Bing could barely afford to go to the movies as an adult. They suffered similar situations and Ling Ling’s was compounded by hearing loss.

As much as I wanted to love this film about loving films, outside of the children’s story, the film suffered from too many coincidences and underdeveloped character elements. However, if you can overlook some of those flaws there is still much to be enjoyed in this film about childhood friendship, family, and reconciliation aided by the numerous clips of old Chinese films.

19 August 2024

Lees verder

Bromance Interrupted

I was expecting a typical angsty teen drama with two boys interested in the same girl, and it delivered in a lackluster storyline. This story was that, but on a repeat cycle. It was obvious, to me. from the beginning who Sei would end up with. She meets Taiyo in class and has a bad first encounter with him. Later, she makes friends with Mizuki who notices her love of stars and introduces her to the Astromomy Club that Taiyo also belongs to. I knew that there was another girl lurking in their past who was bound to make an appearance and she did in the character of Sak, a middle school friend i who was a member of the original Astronomy Club trio.

Saki's return pushes Sei to recognize her feelings or at least has her questioning them. The boys also have to face the past and their love triangle. The three were friends in middle school and Saki liked Taiyo, but was jealous that he paid more attention to to Mizuki. She kissed Mizuki because she was jealous and purposefully hurt Taiyo. What plays out when Saki returns is that she expects to pick up where she left off. She was a manipulative bulldozer, playing on Taiyo's guilt for a past incident, none of which was his fault. The decision she made to stand in the rain, knowing she has a heart condition was her own. Had he shown up, they would still have been in the rain and he couldn't have changed anything, especially as a middle school student. She tries to pull him back to her side, playing up her illness in a very selfish way and even admits she refused surgery because of the complications and her remaining ill would keep Taiyo by her side.

There isn't much in the way of original storyline nor character growth other than Sei making peace with her bullies as they encourage her. It ended the way it started - rather underwhelming.

Lees verder

one of the best thriller!

..... selama ini gw ngerasa ini salah satu thriller terbaik yg korea punya. Emang sih, cuma setelah gw rewatch untuk yg ke-2(?) kalinya malah ngerasa plotnya gampang ketebak(?) Semacam ada hintnya gitu knp si yooseok bisa semarah itu. Tapi balik lg sih, kalo baru pertama nonton pasti ga nyangka jalan ceritanya begitu awokwowko ? sinematografinya ok sih, gelap2 gitu sesuai genre dan pengambilan gambarnya juga keren. Suasana thrilling sama horornya dapet. Terus bgm!!!!! Kacau banget, 11-12 ama parasite. Beneran sebagus & setepat itu momentnya. Untuk acting gausah ditanyain lagi la ya, gw mah percaya aja kalo yg maen kang haneul sm kim muyeol ???

Lees verder

Finally, someone understands that fancy CGIs are pointless without a good story. This movie not only has a story, it has heart.

The heart, and the moral center, is the Western Duke Ji Chang. His kindness is shown, not told. His love for his sons, both estranged or adopted, will move you to tears. Li Xue Jian’s performance reminds me very much of Ian McKellen’s Gandalf. Although old and frail, he emanates warmth, wisdom, and a kind of quiet strength. The physical and mental abuse he suffers is beyond what most people can imagine, but he does not let it break him or waver his belief. I stay tuned just to watch Ji Chang survive it all and see the sun rise on his legacy.

Ji Chang’s foil is the very virile, very tyrannical King Zhou. This is a man so morally bankrupt that he would eat his own son if it gets him what he wants. Kris Phillips looks the part of a brute, with just enough charisma that you can see why a battalion of young men would admire him, even willing to die for him. His relationship with the fox demon Da Ji lends a whole new meaning to the term “animal magnetism.”

The younger actors are more than just bare-chested eye candy. Yu Shi and Chen Mu Chi are well cast in their roles as the sons of Ji Chang and King Zhou, respectively. You see something of their father in both men, yet each is still his own person. Assuming the movie follows the book, you’ll understand the poignancy of their friendship and how it will be sorely tested in the future. Yang Jian, one of my favorite characters, isn’t given much to do here and rightly so. I just wish they made him more of a badass warrior like he is in book. Ci Sha’s portrayal of Yang Jian, while cool, is a little tame.

Can the writing be improved upon? Absolutely. The book has a lot going on, making it extremely hard to adapt into a movie. The writers are right in trimming it down and focusing on a few plot lines. The end result is still in the spirit of the Fengshen Bang, placing kindness and compassion above blind loyalty to an unjust regime.

I'm looking forward to the next installation.

Lees verder

Everything the movie did well:
-Pretty good plot and protagonist.
-Really cool action and sets.
-Really good cast of actors.

Everything the movie did bad:
-Lots of pacing issues, it feels like this movie's plot would bave worked far better as a show rather than a movie.
-Not the most unique plot.

Reasons for the movie's strengths:
The cast was selected very carefully. The special effects director Nobuo Yajima had experience in Super Sentai and Ultraman allowing to do the giant scenes in J properly.

Reasons for the movie's problems:
The movie's production was temporally halted because it the staff weren't allowed to release a movie in January like they originally intended and was only allowed to resume production when they secured being able to do released in April of next year. This resulted in the movie being filmed in just 20 days.
Creator Shotaro Ishinomori and director Keita Amemiya didn't want to have a Giant rider, and the idea was implemented alongside the movie's name in the very last draft of the script.

Overall:
Pretty good film overall but not particularly great, the pacing drags it down significantly and feels like the movie isn't able to make the most use of its concepts. It's not a must-see movie by any means but if you're really into Kamen Rider I would recommend it still since it doesn't do anything offensively bad and it's still a good time overall.

Lees verder

Everything the movie did well:
-Likeable cast overall.
-Really great practical effects thoughout the whole movie.
-Doras feels properly menacing throughout the whole movie.
-Really cool action.
-Some pretty cool stop-motion.
-The villains feel properly creepy.
-Pretty good plot.

Everything the movie did bad:
-Not really that unique of a story.

Reasons for the movie's strengths:
Despite the movie having ton of production issues, like it originally being made with an adult audience in mind, being a sequel to Shin Kamen Rider Prologue that also crossovered with other seasons. Then became a kid's movie due to Toei having a poor fiscal year, it was still going to celebrate the 20 year anniversary of the franchise, even becoming the movie's namesake, but it ended up not releasing on the 20 year anniversary removing its crossover aspects. Then the original draft by producer Shotaro Ishinomori was rejected due to budget since it was too ambitious. Then the movie was triple-billed with both Gosei Sentai Dairanger: The Movie and
Tokusou Robo Janperson: The Movie, reducing the movie's length was originally planned to be 90 minutes.
But in spite the poor odds, the producers managed to amass an amazing staff due to collaborating with other groups from Toei. The directing of Keita Amemiya and the creativity from the staff allowed them to do more with less, resulting in a overall really great movie.

Reasons for the movie's problems:
Them not being able to follow Ishinomori's original draft affected the movie not being that original. But the movie doesn't do anything particularly bad, it just doesn't do anything to be considered a top-tier movie.

Overall:
Really great movie with good pacing, action and characters. This also feels like a perfect entry-point for anyone that wants to get into the franchise since it's not a 40+ episode show and it's a fun time overall. Overall high recommend to anyone who wants to get into the franchise, anyone who's into action movies and to Kamen Rider fans.

Lees verder

Mild spoilers ahead:

Everything the movie did well:
-Really great practical effects, especially for its transformations.
-Pretty good acting.
-Pretty great soundtrack.
-The action scenes are really cool.
-Some cool concepts here and there.

Everything the movie did bad:
-Took the Prologue in its title too seriously and barely moved the plot forward.
-There's only 2 fights scenes so the movie isn't able to get much use of its cool effects.
-Not a single character is particularly memorable or engaging.

Reasons for the movie's strengths:
It being an adult film allowed them to realize the more monstrous concept Shotaro Ishinomori wanted to do in one of his original drafts for the first season of Kamen Rider.

Reasons for the movie's problems:
The ideas of Jo Onodera, who was part of the main writer duo, didn't mesh well with the ideas creator Shotaro Ishinomori gave in the first draft according to the cowriter Junichi Miyashita which resulted in the whole project being pretty unorganized. Some people speculate that Junichi Miyashita was brought into the project in the first place by main producer Shirakura to give more polish to writing due to their ideas not meshing well but there's no confirmation.
Also the original idea for the protagonist that Shotaro Ishinomori gave for the project was rejected by producer Shirakura (also said idea was a rejected idea for Black's protagonist), so it's possible that beside Shotaro's and Junichi's ideas were clashing, they were also clashing with Shirakura's, making the project more directionless.
The original plan was for this movie to serve as prologue to a mini-series dubbed Kamen Rider Gaia but it wasn't canceled for unspecified reasons, the only thing known is that producer Shirakura comfirmed that the reason wasn't sales as the movie sold well and that at some point the project shifted into being a crossover movie with previous riders and a new protagonist in spite of Shin originally being planned to be a stand-alone blank state, but the latter project ended up becoming Kamen Rider ZO which was a completely standalone movie. The draft of Kamen Rider Gaia ended up being reworked into a novel that had nothing to do with the film in 2004, called "Kamen Rider Eve -Masked Rider Gaia-"

Overall:
I cannot really recommend this movie, there's barely any plot in the movie and it just feels like setup, and said setup went nowhere since its sequels got canceled. None of the characters are particularly likeable which really make the movie feel like a snorefest. The biggest draw to the film are the fight scenes but they're very few and one can probably find them on the internet either way. Overall, there's really no reason to watch the movie unless you're a Kamen Rider completionist.

Lees verder

"Can I ... Can I carry you on my back?"

"You know ... I'm getting married soon. But it has been so hard for me these days. I should ... I should get married... I have to soon ... but ..."

This is not a story about a middle-aged man lusting after a boy. This is a story about a man, who once was young, who denied himself his chance with his first love, who is feeling the societal pressures to get married -- who mourns his loss and tries to say good-bye to what once could have been.

Even though this film is short, it's slow. What we hear is not what Jin Tae says -- do not listen with your ears, listen with your heart and your mind; what you can feel and know about him.
Everything is subtle and muted; the excellent melancholic acting, the autumn colours, the quiet sounds -- the story's in the details.

This film will not be for everyone; it's been hard for me to "get it" too -- but maybe you'll find yourselft a bit more open the next time a middle-aged queer person tells their story.

Lees verder

After his directorial debut with the film 'Kiss Mo 'Ko' in 1999, and after writing and directing several films and series for Philippine television, such as 'Posh' (2006), 'Kambyo' (2008), 'The Man in the Lighthouse' (2007) and 'Antonio's Secret' (2008), filmmaker Joselito "Jay" Altarejo shoots 'Little Boy Big Boy', a comedy-drama with an LGBT+ theme.
The film stars Paolo Rivero, an actor who plays Raymond, and who has participated in numerous LGBT+ themed films such as 'Daybreak' (2008), 'Kabayo' (2023), 'Share' (Salo, 2012 ), 'Indie Boys' (2010), 'Brothers in Law' ('Bayaw', 2009), 'Heavenly Touch' (2009), and many others.
For his part, Ray An Dulay, who plays Bien, has extensive experience in homosexual films. The viewer remembers him for his participation in 'Kambyo' (2008), 'Moreno' (2007), 'The Game of Juan's Life' (2009), 'Ben & Sam' (2010), 'Tale of the Lost Boys' ( 2017), 'Antonio's Secret' (2008), 'The Man in the Lighthouse' (2007), among others.
With a script by Lex Bonife ('Adonis X', 'The Escort', 'Laruang Lalake', 'The Game of Juan's Life'), the story revolves around Raymund Fabillar, a graphic artist whose main concern in life is having promiscuous sex, enjoying strictly casual encounters, visiting as many gay venues as there are, participating in many orgies and chatting online with potential occasional lovers.
However, Raymund's life will be turned upside down due to two key events. One of them involves his nephew, Zack (Renz Valerio), who has to stay with Raymund because his mother must travel to Hong Kong to meet her new boyfriend. The other is Bien (Ray An Dulay), a young man whom Raymund finds at an orgy and with whom he begins to feel a connection.
Over time, Raymund makes progress on both fronts. While Zack and his Uncle Emon, as Raymund likes to call him, continue to bond and build a better family relationship, Raymund and Bien also grow closer and will soon agree to be boyfriend and girlfriend. With them, they establish a series of rules that include the need to be perfectly honest about the status of their relationship with everyone around them and, of course, the need to be faithful to each other through a monogamous relationship. So soon we will see the two men living with the child under the same roof, as if it were a happy family.
However, as the days pass, cracks appear in the fragile love relationship, as Raymund finds it difficult to completely abandon old habits.
And although there are many gay sex scenes, they suffer from being artistic, beautifully executed gay sex. It feels even stranger given that the orgies Raymund attends seem to include an orgy coordinator who acts for the purpose of facilitating role-playing games to break the ice between participants.
And yes, although there are many gay sex scenes, both the orgies and the intimate scenes of the protagonist couple are marked by cheesy moments, silly and shady scenes and gay sexual positions that hardly happen unless you constantly hide your genitals from the camera.
This is one of the problems with a film that aims to include so many sex scenes, whether gay or not. Maybe if the director decided to tone down the hammy sex scenes a little more, if the two lovers' interactions weren't so overacted or exaggerated, we could have better character development to explain why these two guys are suddenly so good for each other.
Because no one can doubt it: the relationship between Raymund and Bien is, at best, superficial and empty, and the possible problems they experience are as tropes as they are cheesy. It is very weak how the topic is treated that Raymund liked the boy enough to bring him home, and without further ado they are destined to be boyfriends.
Then we have Zack and his role in the development of the story. There were satisfying moments when the boy would enter the scene with the typical questions that all children can ask themselves, but then his curiosity could only function in the service of the plot, which made his character seem a little inconsistent. However, in my opinion, his role as the cute, precocious boy is probably the best performance in the film.
The actors playing Raymund and Bien were struggling with their predominantly English lines and so it seemed like their words were clearly not their own. And that just took away from the drama and made their arguments even more petty.
The film draws on the ending of a semi-classic independent film of the uncertain future. There is enough hope for things to move forward, but at the same time, how can we support such superficial characters? Is there enough character development to make us want to become emotionally invested in their conflicts? Would our involvement be motivated to see the characters grow or to enjoy the sex scenes as a form of comic relief?
Well, ultimately, 'Little Boy Big Boy' wants to be a great piece about a gay man's journey to grow emotionally and better understand relationships. But in the end, it's really just a bad plot designed to string together some pretty unimaginative queer sex scenes.
Given the poster image, I was hoping that the element of a boy in the story would make it a more sensible film compared to most Filipino films of the same theme from the time of its release. However, it did not surpass this illusory vision, as the creators were more interested in depictions of bad gay sex scenes, so it was on par with other films that attempted to be much less pretentious about their overall objectives.
The participation of important production companies such as Viva Digital, Beyond the Box, the music of Richard Gonzales and his team, or the photography and set design of Arvin Viola, cannot save a film that, if it had something to say, never managed to express itself efficiently or effective. The end result is a film that attempted to juggle two main plot ideas, but never knew how to marry them or even balance its thematic axes to any degree.

Lees verder

Interesting movie but something is unexplained

I had zero expectations before I watch the movie so I enjoyed it up until the last bit scene before the ending and the ending.

The movie perfectly captures the horror theme associating with an urban legend that haunts the island. I got really hooked while watching as the movie had a clear, smooth, logical flow of the story, had a normal pace and scares you time to time. Though I wish they would show more about the main character (Tomohiko) as it feels like there's something the audience didn't know much about him.

In the ending however, it's quite confusing and I understand the director wanted to make an open ending for the audiences to think or wanted to make a part 2 of the movie but in this types of films, I really expected a straightforward ending that satisfies the audience (but maybe that's just me idk) it feels like all the efforts that Tomohiko did is useless considering how the movie ends. The little bit of romance at the ending is rather shocking as I thought Tomohiko and Tamaki would just remain friends and no other feelings involved are present.

Also, Shigeru destroying the computers to save Imajo + killing hilmself after just didn't make sense. I understand the suicide part as everyone hates him except Rin but he didn't need to care about the VR research team.

Lees verder

An exhausting and infuriating film

To be quite fair, I skipped so many parts of this movie, because it was just so unbearable to watch, that I'm not sure I can say if it was good or not, all I can say is that I feel.... unsure and angry and sad and disappointed in humanity.

It was a very well-made movie with fantastic acting from the entire cast, especially the children, and I'm happy it created so much anger that it led to change in legislations in South Korea regarding the sexual abuse of children and people with disabilities, but I don't think it needed to put the child actors in a position where they had to film such graphic scenes.

I think the graphic nature completely destroys any rewatch value of the movie, and I'm questioning the need to risk potentially traumatizing these children. There has to be better ways to explore sexual assault in movies, especially of minors, in a way that does not put the actors at any risk.

I hope they had psychological support during the filming process, because no art is worth hurting a child.

Lees verder