I'm a big foreign/art film fan, so of course I try to stay open minded. But this Japanese weird stuff has got to stop.
The first 2/3rds of the movie are fairly interesting - the kid and a guy who's maybe him except older go in search for his mom.
Then for the last 1/3rd we get to see a string of scenes where weird people do random & silly things. It remind me of the Southpark PokeMon episode - Stan's parents watch the cartoon, and say "what the hell is this supposed to mean?", and Stan's dad says "I don't know but somehow now I want to own all of the toys."
I have this hypothesis, and this movie bears it out pretty well. Japanese are really into being formal, nice, and hiding their emotions. Instead of actually dealing with the crisis, the old man gives the kid an toy which he says will make everything better. And then he orchestrates a whole bunch of crazy stuff to help the kid forget about what just happened, and the kid ends up happy. I see this pattern in Japanese movies.
I'm no psychologist, but somehow this doesn't seem to a good way of dealing with reality. The good Chinese movies that make it over here are at least good and at times brilliant, but the Japanese just throw suspense of disbelief out the window. I give it a 3.
The first 2/3rds of the movie are fairly interesting - the kid and a guy who's maybe him except older go in search for his mom.
Then for the last 1/3rd we get to see a string of scenes where weird people do random & silly things. It remind me of the Southpark PokeMon episode - Stan's parents watch the cartoon, and say "what the hell is this supposed to mean?", and Stan's dad says "I don't know but somehow now I want to own all of the toys."
I have this hypothesis, and this movie bears it out pretty well. Japanese are really into being formal, nice, and hiding their emotions. Instead of actually dealing with the crisis, the old man gives the kid an toy which he says will make everything better. And then he orchestrates a whole bunch of crazy stuff to help the kid forget about what just happened, and the kid ends up happy. I see this pattern in Japanese movies.
I'm no psychologist, but somehow this doesn't seem to a good way of dealing with reality. The good Chinese movies that make it over here are at least good and at times brilliant, but the Japanese just throw suspense of disbelief out the window. I give it a 3.