Zíza

It was such a strange mix of different genres, but oddly enough it all fits together quite well. We had a human drama, a comedy, an action scene, a coming of age scene, the building of a parent-child relationship, with a bit of love thrown in, too... Well, just imagine the situation where an ordinary researcher accidentally creates an anthrax that's more deadly than the one we know, and his colleague takes this anthrax, hides it somewhere in the mountains of Nagano, and demands money for its return. Unfortunately, fate then intervenes and the researcher, Abe Hiroshi, has no choice but to set off on skis and find the stolen anthrax. He takes his son with him, who befriends kids his age there. The researcher gets close to the local mountain service because they keep having to rescue him, and then there's a third party who wants the anthrax for himself. There's just a lot of characters that have their own motivations and their own histories; and oddly enough, together it all makes sense, it doesn't interfere with each other, and it's all played by good actors. It's not cutting edge, but it flows along quite well and is fun to watch. Good for an afternoon's entertainment. And those snowy mountains are beautiful!

The cast is good. The relationships portrayed are interesting and feel very real. That's basically what I appreciate about this film – the characters felt very real in their craziness and certain exaggerated aspects. As an entertaining spectacle, it's fine. Unfortunately, not once did I feel any enthusiasm or passion for the game, not once did I watch a match and say: "Come on, you can do it, fight, fight!" Quite the contrary. It left me cold and I didn't care how it turned out, so I can't rate it higher.

I'm a sucker for mysterious, even supernatural movies. I enjoy watching them and discovering what’s happening along with the characters. It's just that these 106 minutes felt like an eternity. Even the cast couldn't save it. If there was any tension, then I clearly wasn’t paying enough attention in physics... It seems I only crossed paths Mr. Shyamalan in 1999 without so much as a fart since then. Unbreakable was just a mystical bore.

Very interestingly cast, made by a rather wild director, the premise written by a respected source of mysteries, but it ends up being a rather bland affair that had an interesting atmosphere at the beginning that eventually drifted off somewhere and we never saw it again. It's not a bad film, not at all, but it fails to captivate.

As one Tom 1 who watched the film with me said, it's the best MV in the world. :-)) Ninomiya Ken may be a completely unknown entity in the field of Japanese directors, but I don't think you should avoid him because of that. What he's managed to conjure up here would blow anyone away. Playing with lights, camera, Hamlet, clowns, colors, perspectives and... and... It simply is not a traditional romance. It's very raw, on the verge of breaking down, yet it manages to be balanced and as tender as it is brutal. And teetering on that edge is Aria Aki, played by Sakurai Yuki, who handles it all with great grace (the question is whether it was good direction by Ninomiya or if she can get that kind of performance out of herself). Aside from the broken and basically almost overly-natural acting Takahashi, who played what he was supposed to, Sakurai was perfectly seconded by Furuhata Nino as the clown, the heroine's crazy self, and the only solid point to take off from. If it doesn't grab your attention at the start, by all means hang on, because I haven't seen such a brilliantly shot sex scene in a long time. One final piece of advice – perhaps more crucial than knowing Hamlet is knowing the song “Hummingbird" by Kyla La Grange. Although that's a bit of a spoiler. A strong 4 stars.

The bad thing is that I still haven't discovered if the creators were serious about all the quirks and understatements or if it was just the recession. Unfortunately, I can't give it a better rating because of this vague feeling. In the end, though, it's kind of that classic series where you have some of these characters who want to do good, help others, be good, but pretend they're not really good, even though they're awfully good... If you want something where you don't have to think and you like Ishihara, don't shy away from this because you'll like it. Or rather, it will suit your requirements. A series with no surprises, no top-notch acting, but for a relaxing experience I have no problem recommending it. A better 2 stars.

Such nice icing on the cake after the series. The whole thing is in a similar vein to the series. Satomi goofs around and keeps changing clothes, Masaki is cool and uses his brain, Munetaka also sticks to his role, and of course Gore rounds it off with his kind attitude. In other words, nothing has changed, nor does their relationship drastically break down as it usually does, but instead it matures; and if you're interested in how things continued after the last episode of the series, dive right in because it’s worth it. It's more than just steam over the pot.

Oh yeah, now this is a show for big girls. We do without the big dramatic twists, the mothers who want the best for their kids without really caring what their offspring wants. We've got three couples, each in a slightly different situation, so if by chance one's troubles stop taking your breath away, it's replaced by interesting happenings again with the couple "a house away". It's interestingly handled script-wise because it's mostly based on the dialogue and various characters, not twists and turns. Each character has a motivation and some immutable basis, i.e. a core character, which makes the plot unfold because they are motivated by different goals, and conflict ensues. Here I would say that the female characters were very well handled, created very realistically; whereas the male ones, while also well written, I thought were slightly unrealistic. In the end, it is just a TV show, it isn’t hurting anything. It was interesting, real, a bit out of breath at times, but interesting, and you could wish the characters a happy ending because they seemed real. A Korean slice-of-life story where you might find something familiar.

Clean relationship story, some pretty interesting dialogue at times, Eric has a great voice and even a great body... Unfortunately I didn’t much care for Sung Jun. At times I felt like he didn't know what he was supposed to be playing, at times he was almost annoying; yet strangely he occasionally managed to play what he was supposed to and it wasn't bad. Otherwise, the acting was kind of ok. The story... dragged. Quite often I found that I wasn't actually enjoying what was going on, and my attention wandered. It's a very mediocre series where you can sometimes find truly interesting scenes, and what's more, the characters aren't afraid to talk about sex, so it really feels mature. You'll probably have fun watching it, the supporting characters in particular are great for that, but you'll forget it very quickly. You won’t be likely to watch it a second time.

The Iya Valley is a beautiful place. You're there and you really want to enjoy it – you even spend the silly bus ride from Awa-Ikeda eagerly watching everything flash by out the window of the speeding bus. Iya is still exactly as the film shows her. Maybe not for much longer, but it showed her off beautifully. Moreover, it addressed a number of topics, planted a seed, and left it to its conditions to see if it sprouts. Grandpa won't talk to us. Slowly, someone always becomes the grandfather. And time has passed, the seasons have changed, and Iya has continued to be beautiful and ruthless. I'm leaning towards 3 stars for now, but maybe it will go up to 4.