Change Your Image
manoguru
Reviews
Cloud Atlas (2012)
wow!!
I don't know why I waited so long to watch this movie. Perhaps I didn't buy the hype surrounding it, and it was 3 hours long, and its box office performance wasn't that good too. But after watching it, I must say that I felt my soul so expanded after a very a long time. A kind of feeling that only the best cinema gives you. The six different stories were a bit confusing to follow at first, but by the end everything eventually made sense. I don't understand how people couldn't get it. A someone from Hindu background the idea felt standard, but its exposition was beautiful. All the major characters go from ignorance to doubt to discouragement and finally resolve to face their life as it is. Of all the story arcs, I loved the one about the escaping grandparents and the penniless composer.
Bang-ja jeon (2010)
A servant falls in love with an aristocrat
This is an excellent Korean period piece. I am not a Korean nor do I know anything much about Korean history, but I could relate with the movie. The premise of the movie may seem a bit strange for modern viewers, but that was the sad truth: There were times in not so distant past when people were divided into strict social hierarchy; and it was a taboo to break those social norms. This movie is a simple triangular love story that forms between an aristocrat, his male servant, and an woman from aristocratic background that they both vie for. The cinematography is lush and full of colors, and the pacing of the film is slow without being boring. All three major actors played their part extremely well. Kim Ju-Hyuk as the hapless servant caught between his love and his duty towards his master is subtle and subdued in his performance. He dominates all the scenes that he is in. Yeo-Jeong Jo manages to expresses all the love, lust, and fierceness that a woman in her position can feel. And lastly Ryu Seung-bum as the vain but effeminate lord manages to catch the psychology of the character so well that I couldn't help but sympathize with him. Despite his cruel motive to destroy the two lovers, we do understand him not to be a demon; but just a regular guy who needs a hug. Don't be fooled by the love scenes. They are organically stitched to the overall movie, so it does not feel like it has been misplaced simply for the sake of titillation. Overall, this movie is a great viewing!!
Rak haeng Siam (2007)
Oozing with brilliance
I just finished watching this movie. And what a movie!! I had no idea what this film was all about, and had picked up the DVD on a friend's recommendation. I'm glad I took his advice.
The film centers around an family and how their relationships change when they lose their daughter. The son falls in same sex love with his childhood friend and neighbor who happens to be musically gifted. The father falls into alcoholic depression. The mother desperately tries to keep everything together.
There is a great naturalness and easy in this movie. And the subject it explores and treats is a breath of fresh air. I particularly liked the scene where the two boys are lying on the bed and talk about loneliness and love. It felt like somebody just spoke my heart out loud.
This is a brilliant film and will be loved by any intelligent moviegoer.
Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Above average for an alien invasion story
Battle: Los Angeles is clearly a plot driven movie. It follows a group of marines around the city of LA that has been attacked by the aliens, trying to evacuate civilians before the air force bombed the area. And in that process they figure out weaknesses in the alien defense system that allows them to take down their mother ship.
The setting of the movie is very contemporary. The marines do not use any futuristic gadgets to defeat the aliens, except for their guns, bullets, bombs, and their intelligence. Much of it is something that real ground forces would be doing in any real battle field. And this is what I really liked about this movie. The aliens although initially seem all mighty, the soldiers by process of reasoning find out that the aliens are indeed vulnerable. To heighten the excitement of battles, the movie is shot in a documentary style with shaky hand held camera, like the ones we see in the news reportage of Iraq and Afghanistan, with a lot of close up shots. So it has a very gritty, urgent, restless feeling to it. And the action sequences are fantastically violent!!
However the movie doesn't spend time developing the characters, so don't expect any drama as in District 9. The film starts with an explosion right after the opening credit, and the explosion keeps continuing till the end of the movie. Thankfully, the plot had enough good stuffs going to keep me riveted to the screen. The story doesn't get distracted from its main course, which is one of the biggest strengths of this movie. It doesn't inject a weak romance, or crazy ideas to defeat the aliens, or political side stories, or show any scientist in the lab developing some new weapons. It remains focused solely on the movements of the troop of marines. Judging by the pace of the movie and the number of characters that die before the end of the movie, I don't think there would have been time enough to develop them anyway. By the time we leave the cinema hall, it is the action we remember, and not the characters or dialogues.
This is not the best of cinema, but much better than most of the duds out there. And certainly one of the better alien movies.