I want to review this film in two halves.
The story is just incredible, so powerful and moving, it's so hard to believe these places exist.
Shin obviously struggles with recalling his past and it is important to hear what he has to say.
So that part of it is good.
However I think the film as a film is pretty bad.
All of the information is much too spaced out, there are long pauses between every statement.
Some of the movie has a voice over translation and some of it has subtitles which is a bit disorientating.
And in the last 10 minutes Shin makes some statements which are startling and shocking and really change the interpretation of the whole of the rest of the movie.
Which is very badly handled as really, in my opinion, those statements should have come half way through the movie and there should have been an extended investigation into them.
The film maker is handed a unique opportunity to talk to one of the most interesting people on the planet and really bungles it, not getting into the depths of the issue, just telling the story as is.
Though there is a power in that. The story speaks for itself with such intensity it is worth watching just for that.
The story is just incredible, so powerful and moving, it's so hard to believe these places exist.
Shin obviously struggles with recalling his past and it is important to hear what he has to say.
So that part of it is good.
However I think the film as a film is pretty bad.
All of the information is much too spaced out, there are long pauses between every statement.
Some of the movie has a voice over translation and some of it has subtitles which is a bit disorientating.
And in the last 10 minutes Shin makes some statements which are startling and shocking and really change the interpretation of the whole of the rest of the movie.
Which is very badly handled as really, in my opinion, those statements should have come half way through the movie and there should have been an extended investigation into them.
The film maker is handed a unique opportunity to talk to one of the most interesting people on the planet and really bungles it, not getting into the depths of the issue, just telling the story as is.
Though there is a power in that. The story speaks for itself with such intensity it is worth watching just for that.