Zíza

It's not exactly mainstream and it's not for everyone in every mood. The characters are not animated as likable characters, but rather as unlikable stick figures. So what? It's still got something going for it. It's got a twist. There's experimentation with expression, the screen breaks up into individual windows like a manga, but it's all the more intense for it. It's fast-paced, it doesn't get bogged down with details, yet it's not flat. Quite the opposite. We get to know the ping pong players, find out their motivations, discover what's inside them. The dialogue flows; if you're not paying attention, you won't end up "seeing" the characters. This experiment is a success. Anyway, my favorite character is the player who gets beaten by Tsukimoto right at the beginning, and then he tries different things. It starts on the beach.

This whole hard show is about life. And because life is not a feather, this show is not easy either. As in life, we do experience some moments of happiness and bliss here, but from the start you can sense that things can't possibly turn out well. Don't be fooled by the uninviting poster or the not-so-interesting description, this is a very good series with a deep concept and above-average performances, led of course by the indifferent protagonist played by Dōmoto Tsuyoshi. It's not a series you watch because you want to see beautiful young actors, but because you want to see people like yourself. No one is flawless, but everyone wants something, preferably the best. A simple eight episodes ending in heartbreak.

Oh, how I loved it... Even now I can still watch the movie and not give a damn what anyone thinks ;-)) Just wondering why it's such a bad movie for you. Is it because of the Pokémon in it? So what? The story is sometimes even a hundred times better than some American blockbusters and that gets 4 stars ... Anyway, the Pokémon are on the move...

A hilarious comedy trip to Joseon to see the king who is inventing hangul. I like that the heroine doesn't freak out so much after being transported into the past, but instead thinks things through nicely. It's got funny moments, then yucky moments, but all in all it's an ordinary story whose ending I didn't much care for. That doesn't negate the fact that Seul-gi Kim is a talented actress. A better 3 stars.

As has been said from many corners – the weakest I've seen from Miyazaki so far, and I've seen almost all of his work. I'd almost go so far as to say that this film ran out of steam, plagiarized itself a bit, and lacked the will to drag the film into something suspenseful. Even Kiki was basically a feel-good story where not much happens but we see her character develop, etc. That was missing here. Nothing really happened at all, unless you count little things like the old ladies getting out of their wheelchairs. A Little Mermaid story with no evil, no villains, but with five-year-olds. A colorful, peaceful story that is Miyazaki-esque but somehow soulless.

Goblin aired at the same time as The Legend of the Blue Sea. The two shows have a lot in common. Even at the end there is a similar "oblivion". It's true that I expected more from Goblin and that expectation wasn't met; I didn't expect anything from The Legend, so I'm not even disappointed that I didn't actually enjoy it. So why didn't I go crazy over it? I'm not a fan of Lee Min-Ho; I notice that these roles don't suit him since he plays them all the same and they're all kind of stiff in their own way – especially the love parts. Maybe it's his scene partner in this case, who is also absolutely not suited for romantic roles. She may be such a good comedian, she can put in a good performance, but the more serious roles don't suit her, not here. Put that together and you end up with a couple that has no special chemistry and you just don't trust his love to the grave. It was sad to look away after four episodes when I realized that the writer was ripping herself off – the UFO worked! So it'll work here too, it doesn't matter that it's the same thing in pale blue, no one will notice anyway and if they do, they'll like it, right? That's how it felt to me. I found the songs to be an afterthought too, and after all, all fans of Korean shows know that songs are something they're good at. The story has potential, but I don't know what killed it – the acting, the plot? In the end, I was actually bored the whole time. I finished watching it out of pure interest to see if it would end the way I imagined... nope, it was much more cliched. :-D In the end, my favorite part of the whole series was the little girl Shin Rin-Ah who was in Marriage Contract. And that's just not enough considering the rest and how little she was there. I'm not disappointed that it didn't go according to the vague ideas I had when I started watching, just bored. If it had just stuck to comic relief the whole time and left the romance, tragedy, and melodrama out... it would have been better.

I much prefer Miyazaki's more supernatural storytelling. I kept waiting for something, some impulse to grab me, but it didn't happen this time. So far, in all of Miyazaki's films, I've found something to grab me by the heart, unfortunately that doesn't happen here. It's not a bad film at all, there's a lot of flying, there's love, there's a curse. I'd say this one is aimed more at an older audience than children. A better 3 stars also for the realistic ending.

The scene that I liked the most and that "spoke" to me the most was the one where Courtenay plays to the people who have to transport, and Kemr accompanies him on the violin; that would be the scene where a tear fell and I understood why The Last Butterfly... otherwise the rest of the film was – admittedly, a description that doesn't really fit – peaceful. I've been to Terezín, so I even recognized some of the places (hopefully), I know what it was like there, we were taught about everything. This is just to illustrate the point, and it's a very good one.

For me, this was a lovely one-shot. You're sort of thrown into the plot, knowing absolutely nothing about these people, but over time you find out what their motivations are and it comes together nicely until it culminates in a baseball game. I thought Hamada Gaku was very good here, playing what is basically a chamber character with a lot of emotional movement that bubbles and bubbles, until it finally fizzles out in a touching way. He's seconded by Omori as the mysterious man who for some reason keeps meeting Hamada's character, and Kimura Fumino as a grizzled and rather peculiar Japanese woman with her heart where it should be. It's an ordinary little film, but it warmed my heart terribly, even though it confused me at first.

No progress. Childish. Tedious. Boring. I found almost all the characters except the grandmother unsympathetic. The music didn't grab me either. I was looking forward to it, thinking it would be good, just like when the Thais did a remake of Full House, that here as well they'd be a lot better than the Koreans. Nope. It's a hot mess. A great big disappointment.