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keren_boy_ii
Reviews
Do-ga-ni (2011)
The Greatest South Korean Movie I've Seen to Date
If you were asked on how to make a movie out of a real event, then this is how it's done. The real events were so cruel, yet this movie is able to explain them in such a way that it's not disgusting without misleading the message they want to tell. I've only seen very few South Korean movie, but out of those few this one is definitely the very best.
In fact, since this movie later sparked a national protest against the punishment for rapist, this could be one of those movie in the entire world that has a great social impact. For me personally, I felt the sadness, anger and disappointment in the faces of those children. It's like I wanna protest too now!!
I always like to compare this movie to the Japanese movie titled Nobody Knows / Dare Mo Shiranai. Although they don't bear similar plot, both are actually based loosely on a true event. Howeve, Nobody Knows seems to tell the story in a too soft way. Dogani instead is a super great story telling of the actual event.
AWESOME MOVIE!
Suwingu gâruzu (2004)
An overall good story and cast but a little time wasting at some point
As a musical movie, I believe that the overall story is very good. It could inspire youngsters to learn about music, not just jazz but any kind of music. In fact I feel an encouragement for the viewer to at least appreciate a bit more music that they don't like or are not familiar with.
There are only few main cast which is nice. That way the viewer won't get confused over who's who. Oh, and I find certain cast to be quite cute (that's a personal taste though) which makes the movie more interesting.
Unfortunately I believe that they could spend less time in explaining how did the lunches got delivered to the stadium. Like for example they could erase the scene where the girls are seen panicking after missing their train station and the scene in the river. Instead use that time to focus more on showing the process of learning to play the instrument. They only show very little parts of that. All of a sudden the girls and the math teacher, who is apparently still learning himself, were able to play the music right. It's like yesterday they were nobody but the the next day they already become pro.
Otherwise I see this as a great movie. I believe this movie also inspires the Chinese movie titled Our Shining Days (2017) since it bears a similar plot.
Innocence (2004)
The Film That Has It All
I personally describe Innocence as the movie that has it all. It has joyfulness, sadness, drama, thriller, anger, beauty, peacefulness, and mystery. You can feel the joyfulness by the way the children plays around. There is definitely sadness and anger when the children were trying to figure out what is outside and how to get there. Then the thrilling part is when Iris started to get curious about where Bianca is heading every night. The drama is clearly visible in the way the two teacher reacts to each other, you can feel that there is some sort of special relationship/feeling between them. However, you clearly see the beauty of nature being shown in such a nice greenish ambiance and the peacefulness in the form of very minimal use of music.
As far as I know, there have been no other movie that has it all like this. I know that The Fine Art of Love did not by any mean try to go this way. I believe that they were going more into the darker side of the story, and by going that way it means that it does not have the same excitement as Innocence.
Also I happen to have seen a couple of Japanese movies (not a lot) which somehow I personally believe were very unusual in terms of the story and visualization. Yet unfortunately none of them were in any way as interesting as Innocence. Thus I can confidently say that at least for myself I have never seen any movie as complete as Innocence.
In addition to all that, I also like the fact that they do not use professional child actresses. To me it really brings out the innocent feeling. Every move and dialogues they make just seems so natural.
This movie is definitely something I would recommend anyone to see it at least once in their lifetime. I really mean anyone from any religious belief, nationality, race, and gender. It is good for broadening our mind on how a good movie can be made.
Definitely a 10 out of 10 score.