Category Archives: Foreign

Wandering (2022) – A Japanese Arthouse Movie So Good / My Afterthoughts

I love arthouse movies. They got me thinking long after I left the movie theater, reminiscing scene after scene. The synopsis of Wandering (or The Wandering Moon) captured my attention.

In a park on a rainy evening, a 19-year-old university student, Fumi, offers an umbrella to a soaking wet 10-year-old girl, Sarasa. Realizing her reluctance to go home, Fumi lets her stay in his place, where she spends the next two months in peace. They take each other’s hands and seem to have finally found their place in the world until Fumi is arrested for kidnapping. Fifteen years later, the lonely two are reunited both still suffering from the stigma as the victim and perpetrator of “a pedophile case”. Will society give a place to the unshakable bond they have formed?

A movie I hope I will watch again in the future.

The male leading character Fumi is played by Tori Matsuzaka while the 9 and 24-year-old female leading characters Sarasa are played by Tamaki Shiratori and Suzu Hirose respectively. All three are great actors. Fumi is struggling with a secret that he vows to take to his grave. A perpetually constrained personality with rare bursts of emotion at crucial story-defining moments. On the topic of “pedophiles”, every movement, every word, and every thought of Fumi is being scrutinized by the audience. You can see him struggling throughout 150 mins of the movie duration. As an audience, I was constantly being asked to evaluate: is he or is he not a pedophile?

The young Sarasa wants to live freely. She yarns for that. She too carries a secret that she reveals to Fumi during her two months of stay at his apartment. The older Sarasa wants to move on with her life and her past and just live the life that people expect her to live. Marry a decent man, start a family, earn a living, and stay happy.

15 years later, both have their respective relationships but neither is happy. The timeline of young and older Sarasa juxtaposed against each other, throughout the entire movie, as the scriptwriter carefully explains the story while working with the audience to jointly arrive at a conclusion.

What a beautiful plot.

Spoiler-free writeup end here, be warned!

There are some afterthoughts. And yes, it has spoilers.

  • I like how Fumi explains to a young girl that he doesn’t like grown women (but does not admit that he likes young girls). And Fumi doesn’t admit to his ex-girlfriend that he doesn’t like grown women. Instead in a rare outburst, he admits that he likes young girls. I still don’t think he meant it in a pedophile way when he said he liked young girls. I believe that he wanted his ex-girlfriend to have closure (like admitting that he ‘used’ her, which I don’t think is entirely true).
  • I like how the scriptwriter introduces Ryo – a domestic violent man – as Fumi’s boyfriend. That is a massive contrast between Fumi who has never laid a finger on Sarasa versus Ryo who has beaten Sarasa very violently. Who is the abuser? To whom is the victim?
  • I like how the two timelines almost mirror to one another – event by event.
  • Fumi tells Sasara, “Never let others own your life. You are the owner of your life.” I love that.
  • And Fumi never runs away from Sasara. That emotional moment by the beach with them holding hands.
  • I love how as an audience, I went from “he is not a pedophile, is he?” to “OK, he may like young girls” to “Uh oh, he is a pedophile so what’s next” to finally, “Ah, that’s why we thought he is a pedophile”. That ending of revealing Fumi’s secret is priceless.
  • The ending also explains the title of the movie, which is so good. What if the community does not accept us? Just keep wandering elsewhere.
  • Can love transcend sex? This story says love can.

A Werewolf Boy – A 2012 Korean Movie

I don’t usually fancy random notifications that stream into my mobile phone. When VIU notified me that A Werewolf Boy is now available for streaming, my natural instinct kicked in, and just when I was about to ignore the notification, the words “Park Bo-young” caught my eyes.

A 2012 Korean movie featuring Park Bo-young.

She is an award-winning actress in Korea – though you must know by now that in South Korea, there are lots and lots of competitions from music to movies to TV-series to what-have-you.

I am a huge fan of Park Bo-young and have been watching her TV series whenever available. Here in Singapore though, K-dramas or K-movies especially the older ones can be limited.

Hence, I have got to give it to VIU and their well-crafted notification (as words are limited). Last night I have attempted to watch A Werewolf Boy but I fell asleep shortly after it had started. This afternoon, I was more alert and have watched the entire 2-hour movie in one go.

While it is an eight years old movie, I still enjoyed watching it. I am familiar with how werewolf themed stories work in the Western world. And it is refreshing to see it from the Korean’s perspective.

OK. Spoilers from this point onwards.

Song Joong-ki played the werewolf boy. His acting was superb. He really acted like … an animal not being able to speak or write and behaved like an untamed wolf. And the trigger for him to transform from his human form is when his loved one was endangered.

Neat eh?

Somehow, in this Korean version, the werewolf was created through a secret government project in an attempt to create super soldiers. I don’t really get why there is only one of them.

Not surprisingly, Park Bo-young was the one who could tame the werewolf.

At the end, when Park Bo-young asked the werewolf boy to wait for her return, the boy waited for decades.

Oh my.

He really loved her.

And yes, Park Bo-young’s acting is amazing, as ever.

Chico And Rita – A Spanish Animation Film Of Love And Music

A Spanish animation film

The 8th Spanish Film Festival in Singapore is ending soon.  See if you can catch Chico & Rita (2010) at The Arts House today.  Admission is free on a first come basis.

Chico & Rita is a Spanish animated feature-length film.  The first that was nominated for the Oscar.  The artwork is beautiful.  Each frame could well be made into a wall painting.  The soundtrack throughout the film is equally beautiful, especially for the jazz music lover.  Set in Cuba, a pianist called Chico meets a singer called Rita.  And they have fallen in love.  However, circumstances seem to often get into their way.  Chico & Rita is a journey of love and music from Cuba’s Havana to New York and Las Vegas in a span of five decades.  Due to the rich history behind Chico & Rita and the fact that many of Havana’s pre-revolutionary buildings had decayed, the filmmakers have looked into the photograph archive in order to recreate the era and the mood.

This story is rather dark.  So is the mood.  Perhaps it is the pain the gives forth such beautiful music and inspires such exquisite artwork.

The drawing of Chico & Rita is exquisite.

Tapas And The 8th Spanish Film Festival Here In Singapore

Tapas (2005) A Spanish Film

Cynthia and I were invited for the opening of the 8th Spanish Film Festival at The Arts House Singapore.  Before the main movie Tapas (2005), a 18 minutes short animation called Tadeo Jones (2007) was played.  Now that I have watched the animation.  It does sound like a reference to the Western version of Indiana Jones.

The main character Tadeo was at home when from his window, he saw a cute dog being thrown into a garage by a delivery man, together with boxes after boxes of mysterious packages.  Feeling the urge to save the dog, Tadeo ventured into the house and discovered a bizarre cult in the mist of an animal sacrificial ritual set in a quasi-Egyptian backdrop.  Not the sort of top quality animation as you would expect from a Hollywood movie of the same era.  The story is entertaining nonetheless.

Tapas (2005) is a mix of characters with individual plots that intertwined with one another.  In a Barcelona suburb, a wife of a self-centered restaurant owner cannot take his husband’s unrealistic demand anymore and has decided to quit being a chef.  And quit being his wife while she is at it.  Meanwhile, a Chinese chef who knows kung fu is happy to take up the job vacancy (and the abuse).  He is in Spain because he wants to be with his love.  A lady who sells chickpeas – among other cooking ingredients – has been in a separation for two years and now being in a cyber relationship with a man from Argentina.  Two young teenagers work at the same supermarket.  One of them is obsessed with Bruce Lee and girls of different nationalities while the other one has fallen in love with the chickpea lady.  Finally, there is an old couple with the woman selling drugs to the young and the man dying of lung cancer.

This film is raw, as in, there is little attractive about the characters and their living conditions.  Yet, it feels so real.  Ordinary people going about with their ordinary life dealing with real life challenges while learning from them.  Of all the sub-plots, I enjoy the story of the old couple the best.  It is heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.

The 8th Spanish Film Festival is starting from now till the end of the month.  Every day at 19.30.  Admission is free and the location is at The Arts House.  Check out their website for further information.

8th Spanish Film Festival in Singapore

One Piece Film: Z

A film originated from manga.

I have not heard of the manga One Piece until I watched a movie adaptation of the manga.  Naturally, I love anything that is Japanese.  When I first saw the gigantic promotional poster displayed at one of our beloved cinemas, I said to our buddy TK, “Let’s watch this!”  To that he replied, “On!”

Apparently, One Piece is a very popular manga series in Japan, for a very long time.  In this particular movie One Piece Film: Z, there are pirates the supposedly protagonists (I think).  There are the marines who hunt down the pirates.  And there is Commander Z who was a marine, went rogue, and now rages war against the pirates as well as the marines that get into his way.  Each pirate, meanwhile, seems to possess at least one unique power (think X-Men).  As you can imagine, there are tons of combat scenes between the characters.  More or less like a video game.

Unlike other more artistic Japanese animations Cynthia and I have seen, One Piece Film: Z does not require too much thinking.  Just sit back and enjoy the humor and the action.  I am not entirely convinced that the English subtitles convey the original essence well.  I wish there were Chinese subtitles as well.  Usually, for Japanese animation, Chinese subtitles work better than the English ones.

One Piece Film: Z is not a story exploring the abstractness of nature or the emotional vulnerability of character.  It is a film with a decent amount of humor and action that entertains.