Coraline – 8.6
Simply the best stop-animation movie I’ve seen, and it probably has the most imaginatively creative visuals ever in an animation like this. There are plenty of stories about a child who goes to another fantasy world, but Coraline is something very different from the rest, because this movie had all the elements of a good movie right; fantastic animation, superb story, weird and mysterious vibe and above all, one very enjoyable adventure! Even if you don’t like animation, I really recommend this movie! The best movie in 2009 that I’ve watched so far.
Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance – 8.4
This is one pretty wild Korean movie, and it has no mercy on the fate of its crazy but surely memorable characters. The main character cannot speak, but his misery, sadness, loneliness and pain were wonderfully portrayed onto the screen with such brilliant acting performances. I will never forget this movie, as many scenes sent waves of shocking imagery of pain and sadness tattooed onto my brain. Truly a gem in film-making, and I totally recommend this to anyone who likes something different and original in their movie-viewing experience. Now you really HAVE to watch this, don’t you?
Nanking! Nanking! – 8.4
This Chinese movie about the
Nanking Massacre is perhaps, the most shocking and painful to watch war movies that I have ever seen. The visuals portrayed in the movie were so strong that the audience would feel the pain and sadness stabbing into their hearts, leaving an uneasy after taste and a reminder of how evil we humans could be to each other. Although extremely heavy and suffocating to watch, the movie has a tight plot development and chock full of contents and stories that made me glued to the screen, not knowing what will happen next. This black-and-white movie has a strong anti-war message, and I totally recommend it to anyone strong enough to take such strong imagery.
A Moment To Remember – 8.5
Holy damn it, this movie managed to get me ALMOST teary-eyed. This Korean romantic tear jerker was pretty good; the hero was good looking, the heroin beautiful and the story-development very interesting as it sets all the elements needed to make you felt attached to the main characters, and then they start the conflicts and hardships rolling. A pretty basic formula for these types of movies, but the director did a fantastic job at it. I don’t watch romance that often, but I really enjoyed watching this one. Highly recommended!
Transformers Revenge of The Fallen – 7.0
Transformers 2 is here! And the story sucked, the humor/jokes felt forced and the acting worse and I left the cinema not really remembering anything spectacular. But who gives a shit about all of that, this movie got the transformers blowing shit up and destroying all sorts of things and that is way too cool! Megan Fox was hot too, and that’s pretty much why she was in the movie. The first Transformers movie was better overall, but if you like that, you’re sure going to enjoy this one. Anyways, to sum it up, this movie got robots that kick the shit out of each other, it got loads of gigantic explosions and Megan Fox wears hot-pants! No young male could say no to that! Micheal Bay has the creative imagination of an 13 years old kid.
Handsome Suit – 7.6
The plot of this Japanese romantic comedy is pretty simple: an ugly guy obtains a suit that magically made him unbelievably handsome! The heroin,
Kitagawa Keiko, is ever prettier in this one! I can safely say that anyone could enjoy this light comedy, and if you don’t mind some silliness, why don’t give this movie a try? I enjoyed it!
Happy Flight – 7.5
This Japanese light comedy might have the simplest storyline and plot development ever, but if you take a closer look, you will notice all the details and hard work put to make the movie as close to the real thing as possible. Happy Flight is a movie about ANA’s crew; the flight attendant, the pilot, the tower watch control, ground crew and all the other people that made flying possible. The movie does not emphasize much on comedy, but there were some great comedy moments albeit small ones.
Haruka Ayase was pretty cute in this one, and I confess, she is the real reason why I watch this to the end.
Speedy Scandal – 7.8
I enjoyed watching this Korean comedy very much! The casts were cute, the story was interesting and there were a lot of laughs to be had here, and some unexpected sappy moments too. This movie is well balanced with all the elements that made a decent, good movie. If lyou ove love Korean comedy, you’d probably enjoyed this too!
Knowing – 7.2
Yet another sci-fi cum disaster movie that evolves around mysteries of accurate predictions… and of course extra terrestrials! The story was light and easy to follow and I think the special effect was amazing, especially during the intense and dramatic disaster scenes; they really did a good job in making it look as real and as violent as it could be. Nothing special though.
The International – 7.3
An action thriller starring Clive Owen about an Interpol officer who tries to uncover the role of a famous bank in arms dealings, and how they deal with thoso who tries to expose them. The story was slow and convoluted at times, the acting was nothing memorable, the pacing is quite bad and the first half of the movie was pretty boring… but the second half was not so bad and did make out to be a decent thriller. It’s just not good enough.
The Homeless Student (ホームレス中学生) – 7.5
Based on the best selling Japanese novel about comedian Tamura Hiroshi’s life, as a homeless kid, who lives in a slide that looked like a pile of human dung. The acting by the main character was probably the worst that I have ever seen in a Japanese movie, but the story were very easy to follow and the expression of emotions were very clear, making it easy for the audience to sympathize and follow through the story to the end. One Japanese movie worth watching…maybe?
Street Fighter The Legend of Chun-Li – 3.0
They shouldn’t have made this terrible movie of such gargantuan failure. Based on Capcom’s famous Street Fighter video games, this movie has no resemblance to its original source! For starters, Chun-Li was in the Hong Police force in the game, but in the movie, she’s a Wushu-thought concert pianist! WTF?! The story was terrible, the acting was decent, the fight scenes were boring and even the cute Kristin Kreuk makes this one of the ugliest videogame-based movies out there. How dare Capcom approved such a disgrace to gaming’s first female video game protagonist?!
I.K.U. – 5.0
This artsy Japanese movie is perhaps the weirdest shitty film about sex robots that I have ever seen in my entire life. There is no plot, and each and every scene is filled with the weirdest sex scenes ever, it’s fucking crazy. Might be a good movie to watch when you’re high as fuck though.
National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets – 5.0
Err… what the fuck just happened? Believe me… don’t waste your time watching this crap.
The Pink Panther 2 – 6.8
The first Pink Panther was a pretty decent comedy, and if you liked the first one, you would know what to expect in this second movie. The ‘idiot french detective’ formula worked on me somehow, and I had some laughs watching this.
Nozomi Sasaki
Ai Shinozaki
Reon Kadena
