Tuesday, February 17, 2009

hey! new movie reviews!

今、会いにゆきます (ima, ai ni yukimasu) – 9.2
What an amazing movie; I don’t remember being moved by a movie as much as this. I’ve seen tons and tons of Japanese movies in my life, and this is definitely one if not, my most favorite. What a beautiful portrayal of love between a husband, wife and their son. The distinct quality that I love about Japanese movies is its detailed story and subtle presentations, and this movie has both in such harmony that I got sucked into it right from the start. If you don’t have a liking to Japanese movies, please try and watch this one. If you love Japanese movies (like me), you should do what ever it takes to try and grab hold of this movie, and watch it entirely. If you’ve been agreeing with my past movie-reviews, there is no reason that you would disagree with me this time. Highly recommended. Really… forget about Slumdog Millionaire, watch this movie instead.

The Good, The Bad and The Weird – 8.4
The Italians got their Spagetti Western. The Japanese got their Sukiyaki Western. The Koreans, on the other hand, might got their own version of a Western movie with The Good, The Bad and The Weird; should I called it Kimchi-Bibimba Western? The lack of strong story in the movie is backed up by high-production action sequences and lots of funny scenes. If you like action-comedies (with a heavy emphasis on action), you’re going to love this. The characters are colorfully crazy, the gun fights are awesomely cool and the environments and set-pieces are truly memorable and unique. This is a very light movie, not complex at all, and the entertainment value is very high. I’m sure anyone would have a great time watching this. Highly recommended.

Sepi – 8.2
Sepi is a surprisingly awesome Malay movie! Yay! The story is not spectacular or anything, but the way it was cut, edited and presented made it a truly watchable movie to be enjoyed. The film starts pretty slow and boring at the beginning, but it didn’t take much time to grab and suck you into the story line as it was revealed to the viewer, piece by piece. The movie tries to portray people from everyday life and how they cope with loneliness. I really think that this is a very good Malay movie, and it got my recommendation.

The Magic Hour – 8.0
Coming from the director of Uchoten Hoteru, this is another funny and well-put -together comedy from Koki Mitani. Although I do think that the story is too over-the-top and sometimes silly, the barrage of funny scenes made me dismiss my latter complaint as nothing biggie. I really enjoyed this Japanese comedy, and if you liked Uchoten Hoteru, there is no reason that you’re NOT going to love this one. Recommended!

Body Of Lies – 8.2
My favourite actor Leonardo DiCaprio with Russel Crowe in the middle-east! No way is this action movie going to suck! The story was really interesting and it managed to keep me constantly on the edge of my seat, guessing what is going to happen next. Great performances by two great actors and lots of stuff getting shot and blown off to pieces, going BOOM! This is a pretty good action movie, and it got my recommendation.

インストール (Install) – 7.0
A ten years old boy introduced a high school girl who lost the will to go to school, to the world of sex chat. Their budding relationship grows deeper as they discuss the depth of erotica, sex and everything about growing up. What a way to play the innocence of children and teenagers to apply a new, different filter in the way we look at sexuality.

秒速5センチメートル – 8.0
This is probably the most beautiful anime that I’ve ever seen. It’s like watching paintings in motion. I really like the art style and that alone is worth the admission fee. The structure of the movie is not like the ordinary one, as it contained several stories that is totally different from one another, but they all share the same theme of desperateness, confusion, hope and sweetness of being in love. The visuals really had a calming effect on me, and I felt really relaxed watching this movie. If you love anime/love stories, you should really check this one out. Recommended.

人のセックスを笑うな (Don’t Laugh At My Romance) – 7.4
This movie is very Japanese in its presentation. The plot moves very slow, the acting method is very relaxed and ‘realistic’, and the dialogues really serves no purpose other than to ‘carve’ the characters into real people with real thoughts and problems. The story is quite amusing though; a collage student fall in a lustful love with a rather unique girl, whose weird character would made all the events in the movie pretty hard to believe that it would happen in real life.

Tokyo Decadence – 6.0
This weird Japanese movie introduces the audience to the weird Japanese fetish of S&M play, and the weird people behind it. It was quite shocking to see such perverseness in a developed society such as the Japanese; but I guess it can’t be helped, because just like the many characters in the movie, ‘sukebe’ people is all over Japan. I think the director did a good job in shocking the viewer with his images, but the storyline is extremely convoluted and felt like a stupid artsy movie at the end. This movie is bad, but the shock factor of it made it worth the watch. Especially to fellow perverts…

Tokyo X Erotica – 4.5
I am very confused with what kind of a movie the director wants to make here: an erotica or artsy bullshit? Unlike Tokyo Decadence where the setting for erotisms was not so jarring as it was the meat of the presentation, I find the erotism in Tokyo X Erotica tasteless, cheap and have no point in the story. The movie think it is cool but it is dumb and totally a garbage of one.

Amoros Perros – 8.0
This brutal and gritty Mexican film contains 3 stories, and all were connected to one tragic accident. This movie portrays the harsh reality of life and love, and how people cope with it. The whole atmosphere of the movie is very real, and made me cringe at the reality of life.

The Third Jihad – 6.0
The message of this movie is simply put: AARRHRAAHAH!! THE MUSLIMS ARE COMING TO FUCK THE WEST!! AAAHHHHAHAHHAA BE FUCKING AFRAID!

Sex Is Zero 2 – 7.5
Korean American Pie? Maybe. But this movie is still very funny and probably way betters that Hollywood original. Anyways, I was really surprised at how sweet the movie chooses its path to conclude the movie. Recommended, but you should be warned that this movie has lots of suggestive sex scenes and boob flashing, but it is also funny as hell and I had a great amount of laughs watching this while in the same time maintaining a boner. Awesome stuff.

Kami The Movie – 7.8
I’ve never seen a single episode of this malay drama series, but the director did a pretty good job to let even people like me to understand the story; and the detailing of each character with their own back-story is well done and not too confusing. The plot was quite interesting and the story elements in the movie were presented in a nice flow of pacing right to the end. Not bad, not bad at all. This is a Malay movie, and I enjoyed watching this one.

Wayang – 7.5
This movie has a lot of amateurish mistakes, I don’t know where to start, but the most annoying one is the ‘melodramatic’ background music every time a tense scene is on. Next one is camera work. Eman Manan (lead character) gave a great performance in this movie, but the lousy and extremely lazy camerawork has destroyed and diminished his fine efforts. And lastly, this film is poorly edited; meaning that the feeling of discontinuity between scenes is very anti-immersive and totally ruined the movie. All of these technical issues are very disappointing and unfortunate, and it could be easily fixed with a better budget and equipment(and better crew to handle all those equipments?). With that said though, I was very impressed with the level of authenticity the director tried to portray. Although the story did have some clichéd elements from a typical Malay movie about disabled people, the well mixed combination of awesome dialogues, realistic stories, and a rare focus on wayang kulit in the spotlight has really made this movie quite special and memorable. Or is it because of the Kelantanese accent used? I am a born and bred Kelantanese and I can safely assure you that the Kelantanese accent used in this movie is pretty close to the real thing. In a nutshell: I really want to like this movie, but I can’t just overlook the technical issues and brush it away. Anyways, here is a short message to my pkpx maresmart friends: cuba teka sapa dak batch kita yg keluar dlm satu scene dlm movie nih? Here’s a hint: khan.

Sex In Japan (BBC) – 8.0
This is the kind of bullshit that I love: Combining Sex with Japan, and calling it educational! This documentary tries to reveal the unknown sexually of the Japanese people, and I’m sure those coming from conservative societies are going to be shocked and would be like “no, way! That’s fucked up”. Well my friends… believe if. I’m the witness.

The T-Back Game – 3.0
A 新米 (shinmai – newcomer) idol, refused to follow her senior’s advice to fuck her way up the ladder of idols, decided to work her own way up with her own ideas and effort. And that effort is of course, by entering the T-Back Game; and T-Back means Thong in Japan. This is another one of those bad Japanese movies that relies on nothing more than how much skin can the actress show during the whole movie. Avoid this at all costs.

6 comments:

  1. aku suke gak Ima Ai ni Yukimasu tu, cume fantasi je a citer dia.. tak logik.. ahaha.. btw, ade je beberape lagi muvi jepun yang menarik yang sama kategori ngan muvi tu.. contoh Tada, Kimi Wo Aishiteru or Sono Toki Wa Kareni Yoroshiku.. 3-3 muvi tu pada aku best..

    http://wiki.d-addicts.com/User:8thSin#Japanese_Movie_Reviews

    aku refer kat dia nyer recommendation a tuk muvi jepun. plus dia rajin sub movies..

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  2. mmg ler dia ada..

    ayahandanya director kan.

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  3. thanks munsif for the recommendations! will check it out when i got the time.

    weh jismin, tu spoiler berat tuh! nanti tak jadi la teka-teki aku...

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  4. Haha even with the big hint pun I blur until I saw Jis' comment.

    Anyway, again, great reviews. I REALLY want to watch Wayang (since I love wayang kulit)... and Sepi, too. DO you still have the links that you downloaded them from? ^^" (and I still need to find Pontianak Harum Sundal Malam for my class party aaaa)

    The BBC documentary reminds me of this one episode of Japan-o-rama (UK TV show) about love and sex in Japan. Hm, yes, very fudged up. But I believe everything :D.

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  5. hey Adilla sorry for the late reply.

    i got most of my asian movies from this site:

    http://bt.avistaz.com/

    yeah Japanorama is a great tv show, but definitely NOT a documentary. both season 1 and 2 are entertaining.

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  6. haha.. sorry2.

    i thought it was THAT obvious, but since i'm one of her close fren, it shud be only obvious for me je. kan? :P

    ReplyDelete

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