Ok, forget the first scenes with the hero's girlfriend, they are cringy and bland as hell. But what unfolds afterwards is a kind of thriller that is particularly enthralling. It's very classic in its one-man-against-the-world setting, but it doesn't let you breathe, and the political setting is somewhat interesting. It has the same kind of appeal as the Nile Hilton Incident : thriller with political elements, set in a contemporrary decor that is kind of rare for that genre. Not a perfect movie by far but really that chase felt right on point and well balanced !
Reviews
7 Reviews
a lot of things i miss
30 January 2021
What a pleasant torture to watch that movie in (what is i hope the middle of) a certain flu pandemic that turned every carefree-wandering-in-town-&-drinking-night into mythological memories. Notwithstanding the emotional comparison of a seasonal flu that goes from person to person, soon infecting a whole vicinity ; with a magical bonding mystical lovefull linking energy that makes us all one into the same experience.
Joke aside this is a swirl of colorful romance adventures, spanning a night, that hosts an incredible amount of event (but that was before the curfew were every night that long ?--) with the same pleasant cast than Tatami Galaxy. It was a pleasure to see them all back by the view, i didn't expect that at all. I don't usually watch a lot of love focused movies, but that one resonated with me and seemed to cover the topic extensively, originally and joyfully. If you enjoyed Tatami Galaxy don't let this movie slip by, if you didn't give that movie a chance surely, if you haven't watched it watch the movie and then you will maybe surely want to watch the aforementioned series.
Be warned though it will make you miss drinking with strangers in bars.
Tenzo
(2019)
there are actually a lot of points
21 January 2021
Ok maybe the note of 10 is too much, i merely reacted to the awfully low note that movie got.
It's a good movie ! It's also an advertising movie for the "zen" monks in Japan (the movie was produced partly by the syndicate of young zen monks, and created on their request). It's slow, but the zen practice has kind of a love for that slowness, so the slowness is on point. It is a blend of documentary parts and fiction parts, it's hard to tell what is the fiction and what is the documentary, since most of the actors play the role they have in real life (like the elder lady monk who is illuminating, and the dialogue with the young monk was real, it's dialogue times she does daily with monks, that time it was just shot, other than that it was day-to-day life for them). It gives some rare and interesting insight on what life means for a zen monk in contemporary japan, and especially after the Fukushima events. It's beautifully shot.
However, there is not much more than that. That's enough to make a good movie ; not fast paced or anything, but contemplative and enlightening piece of art, makes you think about a lot of stuff, if you are so inclined.
Carole & Tuesday
(2019)
may be annoying on the music side but well worth your time anyway
21 December 2019
When you think of it, it is kind of normal : this anime invents a whole cast of world first class musicians, and if those anime creator really created world first class songs, well i guess each of them would go pursue their career in music. It's kind of normal for a creator who works in a field of art to not be able to imagin what would be the best thing in another field of art, and to create that thing from the ground up, and to include that thing in a piece of his own. However in other art fields than anime and manga creators usually make use of ellipsis to let the spectator imagin what that awesome other thing would be, here they try to tackle everything on every front. I've seen that kind of tries in other animes, and it creates a specific kind of kitsch that you could say also has its charms...
But ! that been said, there is a wide range of song styles displayed, they are all at the very least very well produced, apparently some great musicians were involved in the ost (Flying Lotus and Thundercat for example), and amongst the variety you may find one or two songs that may retain your interest at least.
That been said again, it is also the point of the show to display a kind of dullying of the music, due to it beeing composed by AI.
And that been said, to finish, even if you really don't like that soundtrack, there still remains a very good sf story, very actual in its themes, especially the politics, and the characters do have some depth, and drawing and animation are magnificient.
Ad Vitam
(2018)
deeper and deeper
8 November 2018
Right now (i have one ep left to watch) i'm hooked up. The first ep had left me undecisive, some parts of it were shallow, but the outstanding performance of Garance Marillier decided me to try see how her rough yong character would evolve. And suddenly, at ep 3, a revelation : the whole thing made sense ! the construction of which you could only see the tip (like an iceberg) previously, was beginning to have its foundation revealed (like a skyscrapper ?). It's a grim story, set in a grim realistic futur, and it becomes grimmer, more intricate, as episodes go on. It suddenly is a real sensible reflexion on death and human's life and the value of it all. Yo don't see that often in a work of fiction. If you give it a try, make sure to not give up before ep 3, admittedly it's halfway in - but it felt like a turning point in the series.
New Territories
(2014)
good yet painful to watch
23 December 2017
There are a lot of good things about that movie : the overall plot is interesting, the camera/filming/shots directing is beautiful, the acting (or sometimes absence thereof) is good, and overall ambiance is captivating. But the monotonous voice of the sole narrator is too much at some point, it's too repetitive and unsurprising, it's just not enough to keep the attention, you must focus to stay inside ; and this cumulates with such a negative energy, with no rest, that at some point it becomes unbearable. The story is purely morbid and builds morbidity up on real morbid events (people willing to bury their deceased at all cost, paying for other corpses to replace the one they care for during the mandatory incineration) in an indistinguishable blend of documentary and fiction, which makes you wonder : why ? why is there a will to make you believe that reality is even worse than what it is already ? is it to make its morbidity disappear into fiction ? or to give you a very negative feeling watching this movie ?
Yet, all things considered, there remains a very interesting if captivating movie, with a clever, daring and innovative shape, nice pictures, exotic setting, unique and strange overall.
very wonderful contemplative and warming
2 October 2014
i saw that movie some time ago, so my impressions might have been over-hyped by the patina of time. As far as i remember, it was simply wonderful and a must see for any melomaniac engaged with the experimental Japanese musical scene, but beyond that it's a very aesthetic experience, beautiful views of a dump notably and portraits of strong individualities. My primary purpose here is to state that the DVD will be released on December the 10th of this year. Yes, it's been a long time, too long indeed, i know it's an underground movie but i hope the authors didn't intend that delay between showing that to only a happy few and a more global public release in order to "hype" the thing or whatever...
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