I sort of got this idea from Estanli Cabigas’ Rough Groove blog. I enjoy watching movies, and as much as I would like to write lengthily on what I think about each film I watch, I usually don’t have the time. So, I’ve decided that for every three films I see this year, I’ll do a round-up with short comments on what I liked or disliked about the film. This is also to keep track on what I see for the entire year.

I saw all three of these at home, during the holidays, just before school started for the year. One is a Hollywood film, the two others are from South Korea.

Reign Over Me (2007, USA, dir. Mike Binder) is a film about friendship, grief and loss. Two old college roommates randomly get reunited after some years of lost contact. One of them, Charlie Fineman, suffers from severe depression and grief after losing his family in the World Trade Center attack in 2001, and the other one, Alan Johnson, is a successful dentist and a family man. Alan attempts to help his friend cope up with the tragic loss, which doesn’t necessarily do any good to his friend. Charlie pretends to have no memories of his life before 2001 and snaps whenever anything reminds him of his family, which Alan eventually does. The film can get highly sentimental, and interestingly, Adam Sandler really pulls it off well with a strong performance, along with co-star Don Cheadle.

For Eternal Hearts / 별빛 속으로 (2007, South Korea, dir. Hwang Kyoo-Deok). This is horror film that pretends to be a romantic drama. Well, perhaps it is both. It rests on quite an interesting premise and idea of the supernatural–following your love to death, love that transcends a being’s physical nature and natural time, that sort of thing. (Actually, I think we’ve all seen it before in other Korean films like Il Mare and Ditto). The film can get quite creepy, actually. Too spooky for a feel-good romantic movie or tear-jerking drama. It could have worked better. I think the actors terribly lacked chemistry.

Now And Forever / 연리지 / (2007, South Korea, dir. Kim Seong Jung). This is your typical playboy-meet-damsel, damsel-changes-playboy romantic comedy, only in Korean. It’s pretty formulaic. The poster can be quite deceiving. Despite the image’s melodramatic feel the film is actually pretty light and funny. It has a minor, sentimental twist in the end, which may save the movie for some people, but still, I think it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. It’s okay as a pastime movie.

Tags: Hollywood films, Korean films, movie commentaries

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 13th, 2008 at 9:19 pm and is filed under Movie Babble . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.