Pending Posts - Study Break & After

Hellooo!!!!

Its been awhile :) I've been caught up with exams and even when exams were over I was busy doing other things. While I didn't actually slack on watching good movies and reading awesome stuff, I did however, slack on blogging about it. So what I had to blog about started to pile up. Hence this post is going to be about 5 things.

1. Parasyte
2. Gantz
3. Trouble Everyday
4. Three Extremes
5. Blood

Parasyte

Shinichi & Migi

This anime is about a sudden invasion of aliens that look like that eye and blade on his hand (Shinichi is the boy and Migi is the alien). Apparently these aliens came down from the sky because humans were polluting the earth too much. The alien's task is to invade and take over the brain, but for Shinichi, the alien failed and took over his hand instead. So while the alien has a mind of its own, Shinichi and the alien had to come to terms. The alien however, is purely functional, based on survival instincts and lack emotion. Other aliens who have successfully taken over the brain of other humans, are programmed to kill any failures of invasion (such as the case of Shinichi). After one incident where Shinichi's heart gets injured (physically), Migi (the name Shinichi gave his alien hand), fused with his heart muscle to repair it, and apparently after that transition, there was a change in both of them. Shinichi became stronger emotionally (as in he kinda lacked compassion), while Migi started to have human emotion. There is a love story parallel to the alien conflict. He and his girlfriend lives happily ever after. However, his female best friend dies in the anime due to an alien attack. The main goal of the plot was humans trying to eliminate all the aliens. The take home message was, just because my brain is different than yours - as in I'm naturally inclined to kill (they were subtly referring to serial killers), am I condemned to death? Humans co-exist with animals that they kill to eat. Serial killers too can co-exist with others and have the right to kill because that is what they do, just as we humans need to slaughter poultry to survive.

Gantz

The best Gantz team

This manga is about aliens too, but in an entirely different perspective. So Kurono and Katou are friends who die in a train accident, and copies of their bodies are sent to the Gantz room for a second chance, but this time to serve Gantz. Gantz is a black ball that gives them orders randomly (each task lasting about an hour) to kill aliens that have invaded the earth. Kurono will have two meaningless flings before he finds the love of his life. I really liked the love story in this manga. It was subtle and very meaningful. The alien battles became more complex as it went on, and the final destination was "Catastrophe", which was referring to the end of the world. They were being trained to save the world from an alien invasion. Basically the aliens were also humans, or more accurately humanoids, who were ten times larger in size, and did I mention they eat humans? (the smaller versions). Hence they invade earth, because their planet got destroyed - much like the story of Superman I guess? Of course Kurono saves the world, and the best part of this manga was the "Truth Room". Basically a third party alien that helped humans by giving them a complex technology to create Gantz, to be able to defeat the Cannibalistic aliens. In this truth room, where they asked the aliens (somewhat a God), the truth about human nature, the answers were that humans meant nothing but flesh - and they enacted the creation of muscle and bone and also destroyed it in an instant to show that we are just walking tissue. When asked about "the human soul" the took the approach of life cycle however truncating the punishment of Karma. They regarded the soul as 21 grams of data that gets transferred into another body in another life of a person around us. Again, almost a similar take home message as Parasyte but through a different approach - We all need to eat to survive, however some of us need different things to eat. Are we monsters then? If you kill us because we eat you, than does that make you a monster too? I loved this manga!

Trouble Everyday

I'm sorry, but due to the graphic content, I don't wanna put any pics here haha. You can go watch it yourself. Its really a conincidence that the first three things - the anime, the manga and this French movie is all talking about cannibalism. Sorry! hahaha. Probably I'm attracted to this conflict, not that I like the human flesh or anything okay! Its just that I like to get different perspective of life, even from humans who think differently from us. Did I mention this is a french movie? I think that already explains a lot. French psychos beat Koreans hands down. 

Well, this movie is about sexual cannibalism, as in after they have sex, they kill and eat them. Like literally. Its like the real version of vampires, but less of the blood drinking and more of blood bath and more focused on the kill. The lead actress' acting was really really really good. It almost seemed like she was a real psychiatric patient. So in this story there were two couples. In the first couple, the wife is the cannibal, the husband is a doctor-researcher who tries to find a cure for her psychological disease. In couple number two, the husband is the cannibal, but he is too egoistic to let the wife know about it (duhh). But in both cases, the cannibals do not harm the person they love the most. During some camp or something, guy cannibal meets girl cannibal and they sorta fall for each other due to the similarities of sickness. Eventually however, the mind of the female cannibal deteriorated faster than expected and she is killed. She has totally given in to the canniballistic side of her. Her very loving husband (but arrogant because he thinks he can find a cure) always cleans her up and helps her with the body dumping. I think that part was kinda touching that he never gave up on her. He basically keeps her locked up at home while he works in the lab, but she always finds a way out. When he comes home and finds her not there, he knows where to find her - because she kills at the same location every time. 

She is a total psychiatric (deserving to be hospitalized for life) patient who is unable to take care of herself. So after every bloodshed her husband will clean her up :( In couple number two, the wife is miserable because she can never satisfy him sexually. Her husband (the guy cannibal) is afraid, as he gets aroused he might want to kill her, so every time she makes a move, he refrains. He then goes out for a kill, to let off the steam. In both cases, the movie only shows us one pure kill bloodshed scene (one for each couple). The movie ends with the wife finding blood drops in the shower (as in she finds out he killed someone). While the take home message isn't exactly similar although its talking about cannibalism too, this movie was slightly bent towards focusing of the extent of love. What would you do, if you husband/wife was really sick? Not terminally ill. This is worse. Terminally ill is terminal - the end is near. Will you give up on them? or will you hospitalize them if the can be hospitalized? What will you do, when you find out your husband has sex and kills them after - on top of that, he needs a taste of flesh from them every now and then - throughout your marriage life? Do you run or do you try to save them? What about if you were the cannibal, would you have the guts to confess? Very thought provoking movie. I loved it!

Three Extremes

This is made up of three short films. The first was directed by someone I have never heard before this - Fruit Chan (a Hong Kong director). The second was directed by the one and only (My favorite Korean director), Park Chan-Wook. The third was a director of which I've watched plenty of movies from, but just could never totally get a grasp of his POV - Takashi Miike.

Dumpling - the first short film

This was basically a very miserable wife trying to impress her husband because the husband is getting "love" elsewhere. She somehow thinks its because of her looks. Hence she seeks out someone who guarantees her that her secret recipe Dumplings can do the trick. At first this wife doesn't know, but eventually finds out that the secret ingredient were miscarried fetuses. When she found out, she gagged a little, but then made her way back to eating it. I guess the take home message is simple, the fact that humans can go down low to get what they want - even when it doesn't make sense. This short film was rather disappointing because the supposedly shock factor (fetus) was revealed to us at the very  beginning. Sigh.

Cut - the second short film

This was my favorite - probably because I'm already biased towards Park Chan-Wook. The main actor, acted in I saw the Devil, A Bittersweet Life, G.I Joe, Red 2, and more but I only watched these of his movies he acted in. Well, I really need to know his name. I keep calling him the bittersweet guy hahaha! His name is Lee Byung-Hun. This is about a director, who is in conflict with himself. All his life, he was a good guy - or at least he felt he was compelled to be so. Apparently both of them (he and his wife) cheated on each other. At one point in life, which is that scene in the movie, he snaps because he is tired of being the good guy and tries to be bad instead, and kills his wife and child. However, this entire short film was directed through the projection of his alter ego doing the killing, and the good part of himself, being tied down by a metaphorical red cloth. Before the kills, his ego and alter-ego converse deeply about whether he has actually did anything bad in his life. Even his affair with another woman seemed to be a reciprocation due to his wife's affair. I guess the take home message here is pretty straightforward too. We exist both as good and bad. Suppressing either one of them too much, leads to the "withdrawal" of some sort. If you try to be too good, one day you will snap and do something so scary; something you yourself could have never imagined. 

Box - the third short film

To be honest, I didn't get this story at all at first. But after my very passionate housemate tried reading up the reviews and interpretation of this movie I sort of got it? I usually don't blog if I don't get it, because I don't want to re-blog other people's reviews. That's why I don't read movie/book reviews before I make my own so that it doesn't influence me. However since I have begun talking about Three Extremes, I shan't leave this one out. Takashi Miike successfully made my brain miserable again. Hahaha. Sorry to compare, but Park Chan-Wook makes is it complex, just enough to be able to enjoy it. Takashi takes it a little bit further, off my level of comprehension. Perhaps when I have different life experiences, and as I age more I'll be able to see clearer. Basically its about the difficulties faced by conjoined twins, or Siamese twins. It never really occurred to us how two very different individuals with different brains while sharing a same body, have to suffer living their lives. Especially when it comes to love. At times, one wishes the other to be dead, but the matter of fact is, one cannot exist without the other - literally. The way it was directed was dream and reality sequences, and the final part of the movie was the reality. If I'm not mistaken it was three levels deep. Pardon my memory, I was freeing up space for exams, hahahaha! Inception had five, but Nolan had the courtesy to inform us we were getting into dreams and then confused us later. Takashi, he kinda just slept off first and woke up later :( If you are going to watch this although you have read my spoilers, look out for the colour indicators (clothes), it differentiates the different dream levels!

Blood

Blood

Finally, yesterday I finished watching Blood. This drama, is the first drama where I actually started watching when it started, and went along with the weekly release. The last few episodes I didn't watch, so I just recently caught up with them. Vampirism is a genre that I really love. I think if you know me well, you would know that by now. Usually there are three approaches to Vampirism. One, the sexual cannibals - like Being Human series, where they literally have some sort of a prostitution center for vampires, where they come to have sex and drink blood, and the prostitutes that offer themselves there, kinda enjoys self-harm. See the win-win situation there? Omg. Hahaha! Second approach, is from the view of addiction - like Vampire Diaries, and most of the vampire shows out there. Most directors wouldn't dare take the first approach, unless you're French. The need for something so bad, that you need to kill. The third being the futuristic approach where the idea is that Vampires are some sort of viral infection. This can be seen in movies like Thirst (2009) and this drama, Blood. Most of the vampires here were infected by a virus VBT-01, and vampires cannot procreate. However, the main character was the first pure breed. His mother came up with a drug called Atisan, which could suppress the cravings for blood. The villain's intent in this movie is to find a universal cure however his methods are unconventional, i.e disposing his test subject (humans) when his vaccines fail. This is eventually found out by the main character Park Ji-Sang. They all work in the same place, Taemin Cancer Hospital. The villain is convinced in his pursue to find the universal cure from the blood of vampires. For him, its okay to kill 100 to save millions. Sometimes, when you think about it, it may be true (hahahaha! Don't kill me). In the end of course, Ji-Sang kills the villain, and his (the villain) final words were :

"Angels make the world a beautiful place. But, changing the world is the work of the devil. 

People speak of changing the world. I didn't want to become a hypocrite who speaks of change, but end up changing myself instead. 

So I gave up on being human, and I became the devil. 

This was my very best, I have no regrets or second thoughts."

There were plenty off eye-rolling moments for the love story - but I enjoy it anyway hahaha! Kinda fun sometimes :) Of course this drama had some tragic deaths, not that I wasn't anticipating any, but it was still sad when it happened. Overall this drama was okayy. Just fun. Not too deep, but still slightly thought provoking. If I really had the knowledge and ability, and I had to sacrifice a bunch for the greater good, would I do it? Is there a right way to do things? Is there a more appropriate channel for me to conduct my research? At one point, drug testing has to be tried on humans, what happens then? Will I become a hypocrite if I save the 100, but subconsciously truly know that this research could have been a success and we could have achieved immortality here and now?

That's it for today!! I'm tired of typing, trust me, hahaha! See you guys real soon :))

High Tension

The only reason I could enjoy this movie was the fact that I didn't even look at this poster before watching it. This movie was recommended by my friend, and I just blindly downloaded and watched it. At first, I wasn't really enjoying the movie because it just seemed like a typical slasher film - something like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I don't really like slasher films because of its lack in plot depth. 

This movie was directed by a French director Alexandre Aja. While I have a high regard for French movies, I was rather disappointed for the first three quarters of the movie. Nothing much for me to analyze from this movie though. The plot was pretty direct. Well, as all my movie reviews contain spoilers, I will also mention the plot twist for this movie. Turns out, shes the murderer. Somewhere on the brink of personality disorder and schizophrenia. While the plot twist really got to me (because I was totally unprepared and my brain was getting lazy as it was boring in the beginning), watchers still could not resonate with the main actress here - the murderer/psychiatric patient. I'm not sure whether compassion from the watchers was the intent of the director, or it was purely the bloodshed that was targeted. 

Either way, I still can't fully love this movie because there was literally no plot. No background history was given as to why she became that way, how they became friends - nothing. I couldn't feel anything. At most I was shocked when I found out that she was the one killing, but that's it. It was a 5 second shock phase. In that 5 seconds, everything became clear. The clues from the beginning were :

1. I won't let anyone get in between us.

2. I dreamt of myself, chasing myself.

3. The voyeurism - during her friend's bath, and obviously pleasuring herself thereafter.

4. Her facial expressions during her friend's description of having a boyfriend.

5. The overly quick switch of hiding place from bath tub to underneath bed.

6. At one point, I thought - this is the smartest victim of any serial killing movie I've seen -
    something's off. 

Other than the exciting plot twist, I've really got nothing much to say. I enjoyed the soundtrack - New Born by Muse. They finally got the kill right though - I'll give them that. I think I've mentioned before, at least to my friends - if you ever get caught by a serial killer and you have a shot at killing him - make sure he's dead, because they just have a weird amount of strength to return although bleeding all over. In this movie, she had one chance and she maximized it. However, she was killing herself, which also meant she wasn't killing anyone. Hahahaha. Psychiatric patients are awesome, I loveeee them - forever interesting. 

The love for what you hide
The bitterness inside
Is growing like the new born
When you've seen, seen
Too much, too young, young
Soulless is everywhere

 

~ Muse - New Born ~

The Heirs

Well, I just finished watching The Heirs. It's not a new drama. It was released in 2013, but since it was suggested to me, I just watched it. 

Everybody is very stylish in this drama, obviously because it's supposed to be about rich kids and high classed homes. So far, not many Korean dramas annoyed me. The only drama so far that I couldn't even finish was The Night Watchman's Journal. Seriously, The Heirs was almost about to make me give up also. The word draggy can't fully express my feelings. All dramas have their Interaction Delay. Yea, that's what I call it. Its those moments, where it gives you palpitation and anxiety when the guy is running to meet the girl who was lost for 10 years - but the directors will drag that moment just enough to make you really want them to meet, and when they do, you get goosebumps all over. The skill needed in directing dramas is knowing exactly how much to delay. In this drama - the Interaction Delay was overdone to the point of annoyance.

For me the drama that really conquered the Interaction Delay was of course my favorite drama of all time, Empress Ki. I didn't really blog about Empress Ki because I watched it before even starting this blog. In fact, I watched a whole lot of movies before blogging. Besides the Interaction Delay being a major disappointment, most of the appealing Korean dramas usually comes with suspenseful childhood trauma. The Heirs merely focused on the love story for the first half, and the taking over of Jeguk Group in the second half of the story. So much focus was given on the love story (which I don't really mind), but the taking over of the father's business was so superficial and simplified. Usually Korean dramas can come up with something more complex and watchers get to learn more about the conflict - just as how the life of reporters were portrayed in Pinocchio. In The Heirs, the taking over of the business was so superficial it just consisted of dialogues about percentage of shares, loyalty and partnership.

The third disappointment will be the Age Setting. Seriously? You want me to look at Lee Min Ho and Park Shin Hye as school students? They look so much like adults, the high school love didn't match them at all. In fact, all the other actors are too old to take on school kids characters. The fight between Kim Woo Bin and Lee Min Ho didn't look like school boys fighting - it looked like someone is going to crack their skull. The forth disappointment will be the fact that, this would be the first drama that I've watched that I think no one should have got the girl. Its because she is the kind of girl that isn't even worth fighting for. At every chance she gets to bounce, she flees like a bird that just received freedom from its cage. How many freaking times, does Kim Tan have to come looking for her, and begging her to just freaking stay by his side. Sometimes, people don't want to take the battle. They just want to give up. Contrary to the popular notion, I actually don't mind that. My problem is that, if you wanna give up, don't be bloody hesitant about it. At the point where Kim Tan fell crying on his knees in the empty apartment - I really felt pitiful for him.

Acting wise, it was good. Min Ho and Shin Hye did well, for me at least. Both of them know how to cry - well for Min Ho, not really, but his facial expressions has variations, which is good. Kim Tan's mother did really well too. Park Shin Hye's, about-to-cry-face is really good. She has truly mastered that technique. While I have full loyalty to Shin Hye because of her looks (she still remains as the worlds most terrible kisser), I have to say that my favorite female character is actually Lee Bo Na (Krystal Jung). She looked too cute in the drama. I'm not too sure about her in real life though. 

Korean dramas and their relationship issues are always fun to watch. Someone actually took the time and effort to actually come up with a relationship chart. Uh-maze-ing.

Actually, its a little more complicated that than. Some of the characters are left out. But that's mainly the relationships, and since I found this online, I just decided to include it here. What I really like about this drama was their wrap up in the final episode. It was short and sweet, and very appealing. Only in the final 2 episodes, the Interaction Delay with an instrumental background was starting to make you Not want to fast forward. Another aspect about Korean dramas are Anchors and Literature. I just created the word anchors because I don't know how to group them. Its those memento like things that anchors feelings to them. In this drama, it was the Dream-catcher and the Wishbone. These anchors are not necessary, but its the little spices that make the dish different from the rest. Also, their frequent reference to literature in many Korean dramas always intrigue me. In The Heirs, they talked about Gatsby. I watched The Great Gatsby where Di Caprio acted, but I didn't know it was a literary text. My favorite quote from the drama would be "One who wants the crown, bears the crown." Overall, I do not recommend this drama, unless you really have nothing to do, or you have a really important exam coming up. 

"We may fall again, and we may get on our knees. However, one thing's certain, no matter what...go for it."

 

The Babadook

Hi Guys! I just watched The Babadook. Well, I'm not really a horror/scary/ghost fan, but since this was recommended by a friend, I gave it a try. This movie was written and directed by Jennifer Kent - an Australian actress, writer and director. I loved her take on the scenes. There are usually three parts to a certain scene. For example, there is a door knock, she walks to the door, and opens it. I loved that she always truncates the middle part. Its artistic to take away almost all of the middle parts. There were plenty of them. The son pushes the cousin down the tree house, next scene - in the car. Its not really considered a montage, but I like it when repetitive scenes are repeated with only the essential parts - such as her son's daily nightmare. I haven't read any reviews yet. However I will provide my fresh opinion about this movie. There are a couple of themes that are embedded in the plot. I'll try to discuss as many as I can.

First, its about loneliness. Her husband died, driving her to the hospital while she was in labor - as it was repeated by her son, plenty of times. Some people can't get over death and separation even if they want to. This is seen when she saw a couple kissing on television, and she immediately rushed for her vibrator - and even that she couldn't finish because her son barged in the room. Also, the hallucination of insects, its a sign of loneliness because insects travel in groups. Plenty of movies use this insect hallucination - some of which I can remember is Old-boy and Martyr. She wasn't able to talk about her late husband, just indicates that those areas are still inflamed. On top of all of this, she had really poor support from her family and peers, and also a really annoying old lady as a neighbour.

Second, which came first - the chicken or the egg? Well, in this movie, the Babadook or the Breakdown. The loneliness was not only experienced by the mother. It was also experienced by the son. Before Babadook came about, the mother didn't really have any hallucinations. However, her sleep was already being disturbed due to her loss. The triad of insomnia, loss of a loved one, and the duty of having an overly-curious-down-syndrome-looking kid equals paper cuttings in a book getting their own life. So the breakdown came first. The Babadook tale, was just a correctly timed trigger. The schizophrenia usually takes a form. Her violent self took the form of Babadook and the murderer took the form of her husband wanting his kid back.

Third, love heals? The only reason the son stayed and the mother fought back was all because of love. She had the strength to fight back because she still had a reason to live for. With all her might she fought the Babadook in her, in order to protect her son. It was a really touching moment when the son told the mother "I'm not leaving you, you said we'll protect each other." Well, to say love heals isn't so accurate, because she actually didn't get rid of Babadook, she came to terms with it. The basement signifies that its deep within herself. However, I was unable to get the meaning of the bowl of worms. I think the soil is indicative of pica as a replacement of her violence, but worms are considered living things. Maybe the bowl of worms just signifies shes feeding her hallucinations to keep them alive because she can't really get rid of it. 

Fourth, nobody actually cares. Well, nothing new here, but psychiatric patients really need help and its difficult for them to admit so. I thought the fact that it took weeks to get an appointment with a doctor, only happens in places like my country's government hospitals, however it happens there as well I guess. At one point, I just wished someone would call the social services and take away the child and deem the mother unworthy of taking custody of the child. However, no one bothered to call. Her friends and family didn't care, and the police - well no one can blame them. I'm not entirely sure why, but at one point I wished Babadook should have killed the old neighbor. Shes one of those purposeless characters, where without them there would be no change to the plot.

About the visuals, I really liked it. I loved the fact that there were no jump scares, and terrifying music. I actually really like it when the ghost or hallucination creeps up silently, and stays there or moves closer to the actor/actress slowly. I liked the auditory hallucinations also. It consisted of many voices and occasional meaningful sentences. Finally, Essie Davis did a really good job in her acting. The extremely fatigue look, and the change when Babadook completely took over when she killed the dog, was near perfect. The possession-like scene in the basement with the son - where she was conflicted with herself on killing the son, was beautiful. The saturation, color and contrast of the video together with wooden furniture, old wallpapers and weird basements were all suited to enhance the level of creepiness, and it was successful. Overall, I really enjoyed the movie, and it kept my muscles tensed throughout! See ya!

Pinocchio

Yes, I know that my Orthopedic exam is this coming Wednesday, and my finals is in a month's time. I don't really know whether the reason I'm relaxing is because I want to reserve energy or it's because I have none left. Anyway, I really enjoyed this drama, Pinocchio.

Just like most of the typical Korean dramas, it consists of two parts - the main conflict and the love story. I shall address the main conflict first. So In Ha, the female lead, has 'The Pinocchio Syndrome' - where in this drama she has hiccups every time she tells a lie. The story starts when the leader of a firemen team and his crew dies in a fire. Later on, the body of the leader is not found. Quickly, speculations were made saying that the leader left his crew to die in the fire, and in fact instructed his team to go into the building, knowing there was going to be a chemical explosion later on. What makes things worse is that, there will be a random person with the Pinocchio syndrome that will testify he saw the leader alive and well somewhere. Without blinking an eye, the community shuns the leader's family and the media portrays the leader of the fireman team to be a murderer. Not long after the family is destroyed due to this tragedy. 

While the father is missing, the elder brother takes off to go look for answers. The younger brother (which will be the lead actor later on) stays with his mother. Eventually his mother gives up, and attempts to commit suicide, and she pulls the youngest son along - off a cliff. However, after jumping off a cliff, only the mother dies, and the younger brother is saved by a very old man. The old man takes care of him in some faraway island. 

There will be a specific reporter that the brothers hate for life due to the way she portrayed the news about their father. It was because of they way she reported it, that the public opinion was manipulated out of proportion and their lives were destroyed. Turns out, the daughter of this reporter will be the lead actress, who will eventually fall in love with the youngest son of the alleged murderer. 

As the story unfolded deeper and deeper, it started to freak me out a little because all I could think off was the incident of MH370. How the media quickly shifted the blame towards one person - the pilot. Before you knew it, evidences such as the pilot bringing in passengers into the cockpit and he had a flying simulator device at home pointed to him being guilty of taking a joy ride. What freaked my even more is what I read on twitter today, of all days while watching this drama.

Of all days, today the sister of the pilot twitted this. Even if we don't want to believe the media, people are quickly swayed by it. Just like in the drama, a couple of news about the fireman being a murderer - be it a fact or fantasy - destroyed a family within a blink of an eye. Similarly, I now realize how much damage a news like this would have caused the family of the pilot of MH370. In the drama, the blame is shifted to shield the senators involved in a bigger circle of bribery and corruption. It doesn't matter whether the fireman actually committed the crime or not. What I've learnt from the drama is that, all news have a half-life. In its hot period, people will spend investigating the most important thing. After which the news is almost forgotten. So all they had to do, was buy time. During its heated period, they shifted the public's attention towards the 'coward fireman who left his team behind' and people almost forget that the main issue - 'how did the fire start?'

I cannot fully convey how much this drama has affected the way I view the media. All I can say is that, this drama was an eye opener for me at least. I also realized how challenging is can be to do a reporter's job. You can either be a puppet or you can be a real reporter while living your life recklessly. The ugly truth is - there's no middle ground. 

As for the love story, as usual - it was very appealing for most parts. What I disliked about this drama would be a part of the love story of course. It's the part where he leaves her and also his adopted family just so that he can focus on his revenge plan. It would be justified if no one understood his purpose of revenge. Here, she actually understood the fact that he had to do what he had to do, and yet he left? She said that she will stay by his side through everything, and what more does he want? He still chooses to isolate himself until he sorts everything out. This is quite common in average Korean dramas, and its just bloody annoying. It took the pity-party character to talk some sense into him. To be honest, I actually remember what I thought about this exact choice, 6 years ago. When I watched another movie that had this kind of option, I felt it was okay, I felt it was justified. I'm not entirely sure I was immature back then or my age is currently regressing.  

Sometimes I just have to chill, and enjoy common love stories. Those ridiculous moments of hitting each others' shoulders in attempt to pick up the same book - stuff like that. Its normal - but nobody said being normal is an easy task. I'm not saying life is simple, but I shall learn to embrace simplicity before I embrace complexity. 

The Final Scene

Shades of Pain

Uhhh, disappointed. I really thought its going to be some seriously sick movie or some sort. I didn't read the trilogy, I just heard about the novel from people previously, and I read reviews about the movie on several blogs. It was overly hyped and probably that was the cause of my disappointment. Sigh, where do I start?

The overall plot - boring. It had no substance at all. Were they even trying to achieve a love story? I'm not too sure. Releasing it on Valentine's indicated so (I thought), but its not even nearly close to a proper love story. There were no touchy scenes - except in its literal sense. So I guess the main focus is actually on the sexual parts only. The love part of the movie was poorly delivered.

Everything is so confusing. She is supposedly the romantic one right? She is the one who wants a normal loving, lets-stay-together kinda relationship. But, when he first introduces bondage to her and everything, she likes it? Erm sis, you are confused. I thought I had one sick person to deal with. Apparently both of them are sick and confused. Another confusing part will be the 'Dominant and Submissive' agreement. I think they got it confused with BDSM. I'm not too fond of Googling about the difference now. I'd probably ask some well informed people later on.

But to my understanding its different. He is supposed to be in control. But when she says 'No' to him, he stops? Dude wth. I'm assuming they are trying to say that he actually has true feelings for her, he can change, he doesn't actually want to treat her like an object and what not. The thing is, when you do that - you are making the entire plot so fragile. They didn't even establish what kind of person he actually is. I think they were trying to portray a villain with a conscience - but they failed miserably. The very short justification of his 'singular interests' wasn't enough to invoke any kind of compassion (if that's what they were hoping for) from the viewers. Actually, justifying his actions, just deteriorated the quality even more.

It was really confusing because, at times she kinda liked it all, at other times shes pissed off. She read the agreement clearly, even made changes to it and she agreed. Then later shes mad about the way he treats her, and he feels bad about it too? Whaaaaaaaat. Sighhhhhh. They seem like adolescents to me, seriously. Unsure of what they want in life. At first I was mildy impressed when he explained exactly what he likes. It shows he knows himself well - confidence. But eventually, he is just equally confused as her.

How could it have been better, for me at least? Lets see, I wished they established a proper love story first. If they want him to be a changed villain, then be a proper sadist first, and then change into a good guy. Here, its like they were floating on both planes without actually setting foot on one or the other. Sloppy people. Finally, the sex scenes. Actually can I even call it sex? No, actually its not. Tbh, its really nothing. Most of it were suggestive implantation of ideas - where actually nothing much is directly shown but its compounded with sound (heavy breathing and what not) - and the image is printed in your own mind. Yes, there were boobs and ribs everywhere, but cmon people, that was all they hype about? These people probably never watched any Swedish, French or South Korean movies. I can't say this is child's play, but the scenes are below average. Dear screenplay director, you have poor imagination.

Gawddddd, I still cant accept the fact that he felt guilty at the last part. Sighhhhhhhh. I'm like facepalm-ing multiple times. The fact that he felt guilty is more disgusting than the sex scenes - SERIOUSLY. The movie in my country is banned from screening probably because they just want to save our money. I assumed the novel will be better, but even that, my friends who read it said it was boring too. Life lesson? When someone starts any form of relationship (or even before that) with the sentence anywhere between the lines of 'No one can know about it' -  LEAVE...IMMEDIATELY.

Love Loop

 

Hey there! LOL wth. What kinda opening sentence was that? Nvm, I'm leaving it there. Yesterday I watched this Tamil movie. Anegan. Yes I know, it's Chinese New Year and all, and I haven't even watched Kingsman. I wanna watch Dragon Blade too. Btw, is John Cusack lost or something? Apparently, the showtimes for Kingsman wasn't appropriate and Dragon Blade wasn't being shown at my place. So yea. Here I was. Turns out, I loved it. Finally a love story (a tamil love story), that I did not puke to. Well, there has been others that are good, but not of recent. 

The story starts off in 1962 Burma. There's a couple - well Dhanush and the unknown-new-very-pretty-actress which falls in love. The usual happens - dad objects it, and kills Dhanush. The death was pretty epic. It was titanic-ish with the ship and all, but this time, they actually took the jump. Just in time, the dad shot Dhanush' head and clavicle. So, she was alive, but since he was shot, she just hugged him underwater and they died together there. Till now they movie was kinda like - mehhh. But then, the scene fast forwards to present (which just now they didn't really mention whether it was a flashback or not). The same girl (in current time) is in a hypnotherapy session with a psychiatrist, in a clinic. Shes actually telling the entire Titanic scene suicide under hypnosis. Obviously, this got me intrigued. 

Well, eventually the story unfolded and I'll provide a summary. Apparently since Burma, the couple have actually been reincarnated multiple times. However, in every generation, everybody's role is mixed up. Which means, in this life if Mr.X is her father, in the next generation, he will be in her life, but not necessarily her father. So in every generation of the couple's reincarnation, there's always a villain to stop them from actually being together, and most of it ends up with them committing suicide or being killed. So basically, the couple is actually fighting to be with each other.

What was the trigger to all this? The current time, the couple (they haven't actually got together yet) is working in a video game production company. The boss of the company (the villain now), uses a psychiatrist to induce imagination of young adults through psychotropic drugs (I think I saw Dopamine? I'm not too sure either. Pretty sure I saw ----amine). But this drug abuse got out of control. One of their colleagues had severe hallucinations and jumped off the window. The main actress however, due to the drugs, had recollections of her previous lives. The psychiatrist used regression therapy. Well, in real life, regression therapy is supposed to rekindle childhood traumas. There has been hypotheses that everything is actually recorded as a memory, so theoretically regression therapy can actually be used to trace back all the way to the birth canal. However, in this movie - she had the ability to see her previous lives. 

The conflict of the movie? In every generation, everyone dies. So when everyone is reborn, no one remembers anything. However, this time, there was an overlap. The previous villain, didn't die yet, but they were already reborn, and working for him in his company. For obvious love triangle reasons, he tries to kill them again, but this time nature itself killed the villain. So the reincarnation loop ended, and the couple finally gets to be together. I shall not describe the kill scene, because when put in text it seems weird. Watch it if you want. Hahaha.

The plot was really neat, and I really like neatness. If you want to direct complex plots like Inception, Memento, or Primer - you better be Nolan, Chan-Wook, Lynch or something. If you realize you are not, go with a neat plot. Its not easy to direct a reincarnation plot, if you mess it up, the whole movie is doomed. This was done really neat and tidy. The songs for the movie was nothing much, they could have come up with more emotionally songs that could have associated better with the overall mood of the movie, but I'm okay with whatever they offered. One other thing, that I found cute in the movie was (weirdly), in every different generation, the person that fell in love first was her, but the person that chased first was switched everytime. Hahahahaha! Kinda cute, I have no idea why. In Burma she chased him. In Madras, he chased her. Altogether, it took them four generations to finally be together. Another point to note was, they did not describe all four, they only described three of them, and only two was in full detail. Which made me love the movie even more, because they understood that 'less is more'. When people get the point of reincarnation and how it works already, don't push further thinking that viewers wont understand. Well, we do - thank you. 

At no point, I found the movie boring, I didn't feel the time passing. However, I shall not be bias. I shall still mention the weak point. Of course it would be the fighting scenes. Cmon tamil movies, either remove fight scenes, or get better at it. Tbh, I don't mind fighting scenes. Even Batman fights, but when he does it, he does it with much swag. Nolan actually takes the trouble to study punch moves and Bale actually trained a lot for them. Tamil movies always make the hero of the movie - fight like a superhuman - although he is obviously not. You can either make brilliant escapes when the bad guy comes, or you can fight stylishly. I rather see a cool fight - a really tough and violent one, rather than a lame one. Anyway, while you were lamely fighting, I had time to discuss the plot with my sister, so yea it was okay too. Hahahahaha! Overall, I enjoyed the movie. See ya!