Letterboxd — Your life in film

A beautifully shot movie that sometimes overplayed its slow motion and sad melodramatic music, but the connection that Maggie Cheung and Leon Lai have is undeniable. The best part of the film is the pair falling in love and Its easy to see why these two lonely souls fell in love. Aspects of the movie aren't totally believable, but the initial affair is.

That said, XiaoJun spends a little too much time moping that I started to lose a little sympathy. It's just a little bit pathetic. Have a wank and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Sort of a Korean The Lives of Others but with comedy, and tonal shifts that are pretty standard with Korean films like this.

Somehow, I find they tend to pull it off quite consistently (I Can Speak is a great example), and with strong, and often hard-hitting, emotional payoffs - even if the tear-jerker feeling and music cues of these films are quite obvious. An underseen but excellent Korean movie.

A very sweet and touching Korean romance that exemplifies why Korean dramas/movies seem to be the most popular at the romantic dramas. Its obviously very sentimental, predictable and tearjerky, but it works as the romance and the time bending story just clicks perfectly. Though I'd find out lottery results and sports scores and try and make a few won from that. It shows letter writing as an more intimate and personal form of commutation than email and texting could ever be.

A decent thriller that certainly has a much better first half than second half. The first half is a tense thriller where criminal and cops clash, a sort of Assault on Precinct 13 but set on a tanker ship. There some truly despicable characters on both sides and enough bloody violence to rival The Sadness. Then the second half happens, and whilst its fun at first the film is hampered by a ton of unnecessary flashbacks, reducing tension, adding to the film's length and given us a lot of unwanted info.

A clear and strong criticism of the Iranian leadership and the issues women face in an unequal society. It's also an incredibly timely picture judging by the current state of affairs in Iran. However, the film's potential feminist message is undermined somewhat by the explicitness in which female violence is depicted on screen. Also, the depiction of the killer as an ordinary family man who is able to show kindness and love to his children isn't bad per se, but it takes some attention away from the victims. It is a female-led film, but I think it could have been more empathetic with the victims.

It's interesting thematically, but the wooden, stilted acting took me completely out of the film. Its so unlife like it's almost as though Robert Bresson cast the pods from The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Sometimes when you use a cast of non-professional actors, it has starling results. The result here is a family unit that feels very genuine. It is touching to watch the family interact through good times and bad times. It’s moving to see other family members build different relationships with others (whether it’s father-son or grandfather-daughter). The kids are also excellent, almost as though they are given free rein to be themselves, especially when they are playing and using their imagination. I can imagine it's difficult to script something like this and make it feel real.

This was so much more bloody and bleak than I expected it to be. I was expecting a more OTT Hong Kong film, John Woo style, but instead, I got a grounded film that uses its setting (the year of the Handover) with remarkable effect. The deaths hit hard in this film, and the haunting spectre of death tormented the characters. Great film