Zíza

Let's face it: this movie isn't very good, but then again, I wasn't bored. Granted it had scenes where I'm not sitting in the cinema but at the PC, so I'm stomping them because their bullshit was unlistenable; on the other hand, it had a scene I'd like to see again, which of course is the one with the great music and the "express train". There's not much to say about the acting, the actors didn't really stand out, the story was kind of rubbish, but the music managed to draw you in. It's a heavy middling film that surprisingly didn't bore me too much; I only had to roll my eyes about three times. :-D Get over how illogical it was that a bunch of Polish workers could speak English (since we're on location and speaking a foreign language, let's play it to the hilt!), or that one randomly shot ordinary arrow (which wouldn't have a metal tip!) kills two birds with one stone, and it's a nice movie for an evening when you come home from work and just want to be entertained. 55%.

Same concept as Hanzawa Naoki, just not as suspenseful, and I enjoyed the main character and his "minions" in general more with Hanzawa. Well, except for Yasuda Ken, he was great and I enjoyed his character a lot. Again, it's full of emotion, sentiment, and pushing humanity’s good side. We also learn a few times what it's really like to be an engineer. It's not a bad viewing, plus it can be suspenseful. It's completely devoid of romantic relationships; it's all about work, work and work. You meet darlings, bastards, and even those who are just people who somehow managed to do good or bad things. It's all about dreams and the strong belief that what I do is worthwhile and fun.

Although I'm dismissive of themes where people die from the start, I jumped on the series because what I do like are stories where two strangers get together under some sort of contract, and plus I also like Uee from High Society, I thought she was good there. But what she's doing here is beyond my expectations. She's incredible! Even though she cries a lot, in the end you feel sympathy for her and she portrays it so beautifully you can't help but mourn with her. Plus, she and Lee Seo-jin were very good together, they had very natural chemistry and that mutual affection was beautifully believable (their relationship is really very nicely conceived). In the end, even the little one wasn't as annoying as I found her at the beginning. What I also liked about the series is that there really is a shift, and it happens with almost everyone – everyone has a starting point at the beginning, and the main characters and their loved ones find themselves somewhere else by the end, their situations or backgrounds transformed. And you just don't get that a lot with TV series. For example, the main character is all alone in a miserable position at the beginning, but by the end she's got the support of many and has a reasonable guy by her side. Of course, the series is not all positives, it wasn't completely perfect, but I still enjoyed it and looked forward to new episodes every week. I'm a bit sad about the ending, I think I would have liked something more tangible [BEGIN SPOILER] my ideal would have been a little scene at the very end where Daddy and his now grown daughter stand in the crematorium by Mama's headstone and go to report that they are still well – I think that scene would have been lovely punctuation; we wouldn't know when she died, as we do now, but we would know that the daughter and father are still together and well after her death, that would seem ideal to me).[END SPOILER]

The film has it's secrets and it's definitely better not to know them before you watch the film. Unfortunately, I had it revealed right at the beginning of the movie and didn't enjoy it as much. Still, I have to admit that it's an interesting film that gives a very real account of a young people's relationship, for which I have to give it a thumbs up. If it weren't for the revealed secret, I'd probably give it an extra star, because the actors did a great job, the story isn't unnecessarily drawn out, and the 80s were a hell of a time. :-D A better 3 stars.

Just a film full of dust at first glance, but there's great theatre to be played out underneath it, too. A quiet film, full of small gestures, but when you add them all up you get something nice, even if you have to take a dustrag for it. Viggo Mortensen as an older, perhaps you could say broken, man who has been through a lot, and yet the viewer never learns what, it's just gently served up in hints. It's a small film, but it's something to hide in. I don't recommend it if you want a relaxing film, although I believe it's a good one to fall asleep to.

I read the book a few weeks before seeing the movie and I kind of have to compare. The book isn't exactly a literary treasure either, but it's definitely readable, fairly short, and definitely more interesting than the movie. We get all the characters portrayed with far greater complexity. The film was quite naive and the ending was so resplendent; even though horrors had happened beforehand, it almost seemed that it hadn’t affected the young lady that much. The film lacked rhythm. The only thing I appreciate about it are the scenes with the dreamy Pip. Otherwise, an average film from a place affected by civil war (don't expect war scenes though).

A reasonably good thriller with a thickened atmosphere – you can slowly see the rising of the heaviness, the dark atmosphere and despair. Of course, I enjoyed the film the most from about the time the two desperate parents meet Esther to the moment this sweetheart gets slapped in the hospital. Other than that, I wasn't really entertained; that’s right, I didn't care for the final "fight". Anyway, I rate it positively because it has a certain atmosphere. Don't expect anything supernatural, though, just a proper freak-out.

When I started watching it, it wasn't the worst, but I kept telling myself I felt like I'd seen this somewhere before. And then I figured it out. Kim Eun-sook, writer. I've seen a few things from her and didn't particularly like any of them, which is why I can't really like this one because the lady in question is being ripped off. She's recycling what she's already used to protect nature, she's just setting it in a military/war setting. Again, I can say the same thing I said with A Gentleman's Dignity – it's all fine until the relationships are addressed; the central couple in particular just didn't grab me at all. I'm going to quote a person now who got it as well and alluded specifically to the central couple: "I don't feel anything." Not to mention that the main female character annoyed me, I couldn't become close with her, and I ended up disgusted with the actress, who I thought had a dead fish eye, so I didn't think she stood out in terms of her acting. The other couple was far more interesting and also better acted. Sure, it had those typical sweet moments, humor here and there, and some of the action scenes were also successful, but as a whole? I didn't enjoying it at all, if I hadn't talked myself out of it I would have thrown it away annoyed after the 9th episode. And I guess I wouldn't have made that mistake again, because it kept repeating the same thing over and over again, and then episode 14 came on and I was just like "are they serious?" [SLIGHT SPOILER!]in the beginning they send them into the black bags without having their corpses (missing for 7 years, no one witnessed their corpses or their deaths) and then the guys get shelled again within a year and a day to get a dose of "deserved" emotions. [END SPOILER]. I mean, the story is pieced together from episodes that are supposed to be appealing to the viewer, but the fact that they're weirdly edited, weirdly put together, nobody seems to care about that; the main thing is that Song Joong-ki is cute, the other couple is cute, they kiss and make adult jokes here and there... I was looking forward to it, but it was a huge disappointment.

This is like Hercule Poirot for me – some episodes are brilliant, some are terribly boring. Plus, it also depends a lot on who is Mizutani's second. What appealed to me most about this is that so many familiar faces appear in this series and the Japanese love this series so much, otherwise it certainly wouldn't have been on the air for over 15 years and gotten several films that crowds of exuberant Japanese headed to the theater to see. If you like crime dramas, why not, have an episode here and there during dinner; this is just the ticket. The episodes don't particularly follow each other (there are exceptions, of course), so you can pretty much start anywhere.

This parody series is like me when I decide to run. It's awesome at first, lots of energy, I’m running like I’m in a race, but then my energy starts to run out, my face turns red, I'm suddenly short of breath, I get a stitch in my side, and by the end I'm basically just crawling to the bench I want to sit on. Around Episode 8 this gave me a stitch in my side; Oguri did lift it up a bit, I was glad he was there, but once they got to town it stopped being interesting (=crawling to the bench) and I was basically just waiting to see when that clown of a demon king was going to get defeated. Still, it's a very creative series, and you'll enjoy it all the more if you like playing RPGs. Plus the English translation is quite good. Even the actors were great in their roles and I had a great time with them. I especially liked how every once in a while a well-known actor would appear playing a villain, then disappear into the unknown. Too bad about the last episodes, otherwise I would have given it a higher rating. Still, a better 3 stars.