Popular reviews

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  Review by YI JIAN ★★★★★ 5

  Going downhill without breaks and hitting bottom like a car crash. Japan as a post-apocalyptic world after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Himizu is Sono's most devastating masterpiece. (But then again, which work by Sono have I not labeled as such?)

  The film talks about Sumida's misery, the character played wonderfully by Tokyo Tribe's MC Shota Sometani and his zombie stare, accompanied by the first minute of Mozart's Requiem on loop, growing the more intense as the damage done on the boy's soul gets worse. Enveloped in despair and violence, the relationships portrayed here are just as messed up as usual, and they often bloom like flowers near the end. A lot of crying in the process though, a lot…

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  Review by sinem pierre melville ★★★★

  Your mind is sick now. You have more choices than you can choose from. But you're so sick you can't see. So you make bad choices.

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  Review by ilknur ★★★★

  ne hissetsem bilemedim, zaten hissedemediğimden bu hale geldim.

   I know flies in milk
   I know the man by his clothes
   I know fair weather from foul
   I know the apple by the tree
   I know the tree when I see the sap
   I know when all is one
   I know who labors and who loafs
  I know everything but myself.

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  Review by ButtNugget ★★★★½

  Among the darkest coming-of-age films ever, Himizu is also Sion Sono’s most mature work to date. Despite its malevolent tone, I think this is a highly optimistic film. It’s about change, change for the better even in the face of calamity or domestic squabbles, wiping the slate clean and moving on as a responsible individual—and all this told through a wondrously surrealistic lens. The film gives viewers the reassurance of a bright future for the youth in Japan, showing that there will always be others who would lend a helping hand and guide them through tough times. Provocative and inspiring at the same time, this is Sono at his most poetic and human.

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  Review by parkclaudia ★★★★½

  Something in me cracked and I don't know if its good or bad. All I know is that I have to do my best and live, no matter how much I want to die.

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  Review by abi ★★★★★ 2

  the desperation to break the cycle of abuse, to break free from poverty, for your only aspiration to be the ability to live as a normal adult. for that aspiration to be crushed over and over, but still choosing to pick up the pieces and live, no matter how badly you want to die

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  Review by H ★★★★★ 2

  watching this at 4:59am was obviously a great idea

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  Review by ella ★★★★★

  makes me want to die but also live my life to the fullest at the same time

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  Review by Rafael "Parker!!" Jovine ★★★★ 2

  Action! - Love, Lust And Violence: Sion Sono's Inland Empire W/ The Night Nutter, Joe Mighty Castillo, The Other Guys.... and Jeff

  降伏はしない！

  Weaving between the waters of the violent and the human, Sion Sono confronts us with the portrait of a young man who in many ways reflects many others who, in the face of tragedy and despair, are motivated to inflict suffering, either on themselves or on others. Worse, people who were sent to aid us end up being our biggest demons. But everything is not lost, and there are moments when we have a glimpse of hope that helps us to continue onward.

  Sono is able to mix his love of violence with a willingness to dive…

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  Review by ScreeningNotes ★★★★ 5

  Himizu stages a dialogue between hope and despair. It opens on the implication of suicide in the wake of disaster, the teenage boy Sumida putting a gun to his head amid the wreckage of the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and then cutting to black as we hear him pull the trigger, so right away we've got our depiction of despair. This opening scene takes place on a kind of existential plane, divorced from reality but married nonetheless to emotion, so we haven't lost our protagonist already, but the scene describes Sumida's state of being — a state of being that his female classmate Chazawa attempts to free him from.

  In class, Sumida and Chazawa's teacher encourages the students to have…

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  Review by Dan ★★★★★ 12

  Sumida: "I HAVE THE PRIDE DESPITE MY DISMAL CIRCUMSTANCES! I WAS UNLUCKY TO BE BORN TO A CUNT AND A LOSER! THAT DOESN'T MAKE ME A LOSER! I'M NOT A LOSER LIKE YOU! YOU'LL SEE THAT NOBODY CAN TOUCH MY FUTURE! I WON'T BE LIKE YOU! I'LL BE A RESPECTABLE ADULT!"

  Sumida is a teenager who lives in an awful, violent & somber neighborhood. He is unwanted by their parents & also physically abused by his father who always come and go asking him for money, while his mother eventually leaves him for another man. And to make it worse, he had to deal his father's debt by meeting face to face by his debt collector while being molested by them

  Sumida…

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  Review by crimsen 泓 ★★★½

  not every flower is in a vase to be admired.
  not every dream is in a lifetime to be extraordinary.