The themes of this movie are timeless and poignant but this flick is needlessly long. It's as if the actor/director got so involved in the filming that he forgot it was O.K. to leave some shots on the cutting room floor. And there was no need. This movie would have been more focused and much better with about half an hour or so dropped from it's running time. Now, I'm quite used to Korean cinema which usually has a much longer set-up time than we are used to in the West but that isn't what happens here. The characters and situations are set up rather quickly so that you know exactly who is who and what is going on in their lives and then the story stops developing and sort of just settles down into following these people around as they live their daily lives. It gets a little repetitious. Every once in a while, a new element is introduced but these moments are few and far between. I think of a long Korean film like Gyeongju where almost every shot counts and every little thing means something and watching this movie seemed much more like meandering around for almost three hours. I really liked the bones of this story but felt like it became something of endurance feat to unearth them all.
Review of Alive
