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michaelr-40112
Reviews
Never Forever (2007)
Refreshing Interracial Romance Story
While the romance genre is something I'm new to, I'd have to say this was one of the best ones I've seen (please remember, I've only watched about 5 romance movies in my 32 years of life).
A love that develops between people of two different races and cultures is something that I find very fascinating. It proves that we all want the same thing, no matter what creed, culture, race, nation, religion, whatever we come from.
That being said, Vera Farmiga puts on her best "desperate woman" role (I believe she won the Emmy for Bates Motel for playing a character I'd describe as such). Desperate to please her Korean-American husband and his family, she goes to a sperm clinic alone and witnesses a Korean man with an expired visa getting rejected as a donor.
Intrigued by the possibility of covertly and unmaliciously fooling her husband by having sex with a Korean man simply for the sake of having a baby she can at least pretend belongs to her and her husband, she follows the rejected sperm donor and eventually gives him a business proposal.
What follows is story of inner conflict, the desire (and simultaneous torment) to live up to societal and cultural expectations (and how they can get in the way of true love), as well as how other things out of our control can get in the way of being with the one we want.
While the epilogue left me a little confused, I was for the most part enraptured by the film. I think it'd be appealing to anyone having trouble finding true happiness and love.
Also, did Vera break the 4th wall at the end?
Dalkomhan insaeng (2005)
Not one of the "great" K-revenge movies, but entertaining nonetheless
Ah...the Korean revenge genre. I only recently got into it so I'm not even going to attempt posting character or actor names. Way too exotic for me.
The thing about a good K-Revenge movie, is that you put all your sympathies into the character. Even in Oldboy, you mostly retain your sympathy for Oh Dae Su (there...I got one right).
With this film, the model looking protagonist plays the cat and mouse game just as he eventually did in I Saw the Devil (the "villain" play by Choi-Min Sik..maybe I'm not as bad at this as I thought).
However, there is a phrase uttered in one of the scenes that implies him to not be without blood on his own hands.
Regardless, you sympathize with him for most of the movie and can't help but root him on. His touching monologue to the man he's seeking revenge against is a great emotional forebearing of the final fist, leg and gunfight show.
Being an older movie, I'll forgive it's flaws. Even with them, it's still worth watching if you're into this fascinating subgenre of foreign film.
The Road Within (2014)
A topic close to my heart, but relied too much on tropes and cliché
So mental illness is something I struggle with. One of the major ones is OCD. I'm tired of movies and shows portraying OCDers as germaphobes. OCD can be much more complex than that. As well, for tourettes, I don't know anyone who has it, but I got the sense it was being used as comic relief and was slightly exaggerated. As far as the female character goes, not all women with eating disorder are the "rebel type"...
I believe the films creators had good intentions though. The level of filmmaking is only mid tier, as they relied on way too many tropes. Tropes I've seen seeing since I was a little feller and watched my second movie. It was also quite predictable.
Honestly though, I don't know if someone with mental illness would write a movie like this and I wonder if the screenwriter even has mental illness himself, or just thought it'd be a "touching" story, with the Oscar statue lingering in the back of his mind.
Still, it's hard to resist the journey the characters go through and the way they bond over their illnesses. As someone who's been there myself, I know that bond can be very powerful. Social Stigma is still very strong and it's hard to find someone suffering from a debilitating disease that is going to open up to you and be your friend.
I also appreciated the use of music in this film. At first, I thought I left my Classical playlist running, but it was just Dev Patel playing Bach while he madly cleaned his room from germs. It snyched pretty well. The other songs were perfect for the scenes as well. Yet this is the only artistic merit I would grant this movie.
Stil, I gave it a 7 because overall I think it depicted metal illness sufferers as real, hell even normal, people. It was fast paced, quick and to the point. I enjoyed watching it. Oscar Contender or Indie favorite it is not, it still kept me entertained.